


befores, durings, and afters

by angel_deux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I don't know, M rating for Chapter 3 everything else is T so far, One Shot Collection, call it what you want, collection of one shots that take place in the universes of my already-existing fics?, sequel collection?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-11-27 20:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: A collection of one-shots set in the various universes I've written for Jaime x Brienne4. Two Halves of a Soul - Remix. Jaime asks his roommate Brienne to pretend to be his soulmate so he can avoid being set up on a date. Except Brienne IS his soulmate, and she's known for a while.





	1. Two Halves of a Soul: Amerei

**Author's Note:**

> prompted on tumblr: "i wish you'd write a flash forward to 'two halves of a soul'!"
> 
> One of you finally tricked me into doing this! 
> 
> If you want to see anything specific from any of my previous fics, let me know on tumblr! (angel-deux-writes). Alternate POVs, scenes that I may have barely touched on because I'm lazy and hate plot, alternate endings, or just prompts related to the fics. Be specific or they'll all just be from I'm Dying to be Born Again, because that remains my favorite one. I can't promise I'll do all of them, but I'll do the ones that inspire something in me!
> 
> (A Jaime/Brienne POV of the Cersei RA fic is already in my prompts list, so don't request that one!)

Lancel’s girlfriend’s name is Amerei, and she seems about as interested in Jaime’s cousin as Jaime is, romantically. Actually, she seems about as interested in Lancel’s company _in_ _general_ as Jaime is. Jaime doesn’t understand couples like them. They don’t even talk to each other.

He made it most of the way through high school without ever dating for a _reason_: he wasn’t willing to settle for someone he didn’t wholeheartedly like. There were people he found attractive and there were people he liked spending time with, but it wasn’t until Brienne that he understood exactly how much a girlfriend could be a friend at the same time. A best friend, even!

Admittedly, he and Brienne share a soulmark, and they started off with Jaime making fun of her at the behest of his sister for years. Their situation was always a little intense for just high school.

Lancel and Amerei, he has to imagine, do _not _share a soulmark. Lancel has fallen in with some kind of ultra-conservative cult that appears to be mostly based around making other people miserable, and he can’t imagine many of them even _have _soulmarks. The universe probably wouldn’t be that cruel to the people on the other end of it.

Jaime really, really doesn’t like Lancel. If he hadn’t promised Uncle Kevan he would look out for his younger cousin, this awkward cafeteria gathering wouldn’t be happening. But Jaime _did_ promise, and so here they are.

Amerei picks at her food while sending Jaime increasingly loaded glances, and Lancel has both earbuds in as he plays whatever he’s playing on his phone.

His freshman year behind him, Jaime can appreciate their skittishness in the way only a deeply learned and world-weary sophomore can, and he _does_ feel sorry for them in the way he always feels sorry for vaguely helpless things. Lancel retreats behind his phone and pretends he doesn’t care what people think of him, and Amerei tries too hard to make connections with the people around her, like if it doesn’t happen in the first few weeks, it won’t happen at all. He understands. He sympathizes, a little. It doesn’t make things any more pleasant for _him_. He already finds himself adrift and unhappy being back at school for another boring, hellish year. He can’t imagine his outlook will improve if he has to spend much more time with these two.

“Is it true you already know your soulmate?” Amerei asks, breaking Jaime out of one of the worst awkward silences of his life.

(The time Brienne silently packed up her things and then walked away from him in the library after he insulted her in front of Cersei…that was probably worse than this. But only _just._)

“Yes,” Jaime says, almost desperate. “Brienne. My _girlfriend_.”

That’s another thing. Amerei is either the most obliviously, unintentionally flirty person on the planet, or she just doesn’t _care_ that Jaime has peppered most of this conversation with mentions of his girlfriend and how much he loves her. She just tosses her hair over her shoulder and smiles wider, like Jaime’s words are _encouraging_.

“It’s weird that you two went to different schools,” Amerei says. “You must be so trusting.”

Yes, much to Jaime’s annoyance, he and Brienne _still_ go to two different schools. He had brought up the idea of transferring to be with her over the summer, but Brienne shot the idea down before it could get farther than a tentative hope. He’s playing football, even though he isn’t enjoying it at the college level, and he’s doing poorly in his classes, but he somehow managed not to fail any, so she thought it was a poor choice.

“Why would you give up everything you’ve started there just so we can be in the same place?” she asked when he mentioned it. “We’re busy all the time anyway. We’ll probably have opposite schedules. We’d hardly see each other.”

It was their first and only real fight that summer. It lasted half a day before Jaime was ready to have it done with and pretend to get over it, though it still annoys him even now.

“It was sensible to go here,” Jaime says in answer to Amerei’s leading statement. “They have a good football program, and a good business program. Brienne’s much smarter than me, so she’s going to a better school and playing soccer and generally just…being the best.”

That’s still the part that rankles the most: Brienne’s stubborn refusal to name the _real_ problem with Jaime’s plan.

His grades aren’t good enough. He barely got into _this_ school. How could he hope to keep up with her?

She’d never say it. She loves him too much to hurt him that way. He had heard it anyway in the careful pauses before she spoke.

“Still,” Amerei says, leaning over the table a bit too much. Jaime wants to look at Lancel to see how Lancel feels about this development, but he’s kind of afraid to. Has she been listening _at all_? It feels like it can’t possibly be incidental, but he also can’t quite understand how she doesn’t realize Jaime’s a lost cause. “You’re so far from her all the time. You must miss her. And a straight girl with a soulmark has a target on her back, especially if she’s already with him.”

“What?” Jaime asks.

“You didn’t realize?” Amerei continues. She’s practically simpering now, like Jaime’s ignorance has just leapt to the top of the reasons why she apparently finds him so fuckable. “Yeah, it’s a whole thing. Especially with frats. They try and get with girls who have soulmarks. The challenge, you know? If she’s already committed to another guy, that’s like double points or something.”

She laughs like it’s some charming quirk and not one of the worst things Jaime has ever heard. He remembers another bet, another thing that people were going to do for _points_. His once-broken wrist aches at the memory, and so does his stomach, remembering the look on Brienne’s face. He hadn’t even loved her yet, then. Remembering it now is an agony.

“Brienne wouldn’t get taken in by something like that,” he says. “She doesn’t trust people.”

Amerei makes a kind of agreeing sound that also seems sort of pitying. She’s looking at him the way Cersei does sometimes when he’s being stupid and doesn’t understand something that she thinks should be obvious.

“You’re probably right. You probably know better than anyone. Then again, I thought the same thing about me.”

Jaime doesn’t like where this is going. He _does_ send a slightly desperate look in Lancel’s direction, but Lancel doesn’t do anything but grab another potato chip and then go back to his game.

“You have a soulmark?” Jaime asks. Not for the first time, he kind of regrets Brienne’s influence. He’s always so godsdamned polite now. The Jaime before Brienne would have just walked away from this conversation as quickly as possible with some muttered lie about homework or something. But Brienne’s stern disappointment has infected him, and so here he sits, suffering.

“I do. It isn’t Lancel, don’t worry. Lancel and I are _super _casual. It’s kind of an open relationship thing.” A pause, pointed, that Jaime refuses to acknowledge. She continues happily, “me and my soulmate decided to wait until after college before we get together. Live a little first. See what else is out there.”

She’s leaning now so far forward that it _has_ to be uncomfortable. Jaime’s uncomfortable just looking at her.

“Brienne and I aren’t like that,” he says. “She’s the only one I want.”

He had hoped that this would discourage Amerei, or at least slow her down a little. But she only shrugs.

“Like I said. Trusting. It’s a bold assumption, that she feels the same way. I’m just saying. Even soulmarks aren’t a guarantee that things will work out. And there are a lot of ways they’re kind of exploitative, you know? Manipulating people into staying in bad relationships. I’m learning about it in my history class now. Not that that’s what you and your girlfriend are doing. I’m sure you’re not. But like, you two got together so young. Then again, you’re...well. Maybe I’m wrong. You’re definitely not the kind of person a girl would stray from.” She smiles again, more pointed this time.

And Jaime understands that all of this is an attempt to persuade him to sleep with her. He may be largely oblivious to when people are interested in him, but Amerei isn’t giving him room to do that. Her intentions couldn’t be clearer. And it’s not like he _blames _her, though he thinks she should probably ditch Lancel because _seriously_, Lancel is the worst. But her words are hitting him somewhere unexpected, painful.

He does trust Brienne. He knows she wouldn’t ever do something like that. That isn’t the issue.

But Amerei sounds so dismissive of the soulmate thing, and the fact that Brienne and Jaime are together and fated to be together and that they’re going to be _happy_, and it makes those little doubts that have already been bubbling around him seem more solid, stronger.

Like, maybe that’s what Brienne is afraid of. She seems okay with spending these four years apart except for extremely rare visits and scheduled facetime calls and summer holidays. For Jaime it’s like the worst feeling in the world, but Brienne is just so _practical_ about it. So incredulous at the thought that they might change their plans for each other. Maybe she thinks they got together too young. Maybe she wishes that they had waited. Maybe she wishes that she could branch out and meet other people to see if Jaime’s the one she really wants.

He is! Jaime knows he is. Brienne loves him. Brienne would choose him, because she believes in soulmates as much as he does.

But he can’t help but be a little scared. Surely Amerei believed in soulmates once, too. Surely she had the same childish certainty about them when she was a girl that Jaime had as a child. Maybe it changes, for some people. He knows that soulmates don’t always work out. He knows that sometimes people choose to be with the ones they aren’t fated to be with. Maybe Jaime seemed like a good soulmate in high school, when he was in his element. Will he seem like a good soulmate now that they’re in college and he’s barely scraping by on his business degree? Will he seem like a good one when he graduates and struggles to find a job that can hold his interest? He doesn’t know what he wants to do. He doesn’t even know who he is. Brienne has everything figured out, and maybe Jaime’s going to hold her back. Even if she does choose him, even if she allows him to tag along, _should_ she?

* * *

He knows he shouldn’t facetime her during the day, but he can’t help himself. Her literature class doesn’t start for another half hour, so she’s probably at the café down the street getting a coffee, and she’ll drink it sitting on that bench she likes outside the classroom building. He sits down on the ledge just outside the cafeteria and calls her, making sure that Amerei and Lancel are still nowhere to be found. He can’t even remember what excuse he gave them for leaving.

The call rings through for several seconds during which Jaime contemplates hanging up and then pretending he didn’t call her, but then the screen lights up, and Brienne is there.

He smiles at her, relieved to see her face again, but she looks concerned. In deference to the fall weather, she has a knit cap pulled down over her head, and she looks _adorable_. She’s walking down the sidewalk, and he knows she must have just gotten out of the cafe.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“What? Nothing. I just wanted to say hey.” When her brow furrows further, he wonders if it’s because she doesn’t believe him or if it’s because she’s annoyed he called outside their usual scheduled chats if nothing’s wrong. He hurries to say. “Uncle Kevan bullied me into hanging out with Lancel and his girlfriend, and she was a bit much.”

“Oh,” Brienne says with a smile. She takes a seat on the bench he knew she would head to, and she sighs happily as she takes a sip of her coffee. She’s wearing fingerless gloves. She’s so cute. She’s so in her element in college, where people are kinder to her and where looks don’t seem to matter as much to the people she has befriended. It makes Jaime long to be beside her. To see her every day. “You looked a little frazzled. And you don’t usually call during the day.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he says, and her brow furrows again.

“No, it’s okay,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Yeah,” Jaime says. He shouldn’t have called. He’s being absurd, as his father would say. Looking for attention_._ Of _course_ she can sense that something’s wrong. She’s _Brienne_. His soulmate. And she knows him better than anyone else. “Sorry, I should let you go. Uh. Say hi to Sarella and everyone else for me?”

“Sure, okay,” Brienne says. She still looks puzzled as Jaime ends the call.

* * *

It isn’t that Jaime doesn’t have friends at school. But they’re nothing like the friends he made in high school, once he and Brienne started getting along. They aren’t Robb and Sansa and Margaery. They aren’t Tyrion, either. They’re good to him, and he likes spending time with them, but there’s nothing deeper than a surface friendship. If he left these people behind, he wouldn’t be facetiming them in the middle of the day. He would say goodbye, and that would be it. He wouldn’t miss them. They wouldn’t miss him, either.

* * *

Brienne texts him later in the day, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t lying when he said he was fine. Jaime’s back in his room at this point, struggling through some homework, and he feels less vulnerable like this.

He texts back, and he tells her that he was just feeling overwhelmed. Missing her.

She facetimes him, this time.

She’s sitting outside somewhere, lounging on some grass. She looks lovely and unconcerned, and it makes it so much worse. 

“Hey,” he says, trying to make his messy bed look more presentable. “Shit. Hi. What’s up?”

“So you’re not okay, is what you’re telling me,” she says. He laughs a little, and it sounds horrible. All high and embarrassing.

“No, I’m fine,” he says. “Really.” She doesn’t look convinced. “Lancel’s girlfriend was just really, uh. Forward?” Something flashes across her face. Some shifting of her features that he can’t read. He hastens to continue. “She was asking me a lot of questions about you, and it made me start thinking about, like, I don’t know. What you might want, or if you’re...”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

The thought is so horrifying that he jerks his head back and literally hits it on the wall behind him.

“Ow. Fuck. _No_! No, I wouldn’t ever. That’s not it at _all_.”

“Oh.” Brienne’s shoulders slump a little in relief, and he can’t believe that that was something she was actually worried about.

“Fuck, if anything, I’m worried you’re going to break up with me.”

“Me?” Brienne scoffs. “Why would I break up with you?”

“I don’t know,” he says, but that’s not entirely true. He can think of a hundred reasons. He can see that Brienne is waiting, so he says, “I’m not doing great here. I’m not…my grades aren’t any good. I was lucky to make it into school at _all_. I think I might hate playing football, but I’m not good at anything else.”

“That isn’t true,” Brienne says. “And you got into college because we improved your grades. You earned them.”

W_e improved_, he thinks wryly. He wanted to impress her. He wanted her to think he wasn’t a total idiot. He wanted to go to college with her.

“Maybe,” he says drily instead. “I guess I just thought it would be different this year. Better.”

“Are you not happy, Jaime?” Brienne asks suddenly. Like it’s a revelation. He starts to deny, deflect, the way he always does, but she stops him. “Don’t just tell me what you think you should say. I want to know.”

Jaime sighs, and he thinks about it. It was the discussion about soulmarks that caused this current spiral, but it wasn’t _just_ about that, and it seems like it has gotten bigger inside him. Bigger since the summer reminded him how happy he can be, but bigger since that conversation with Amerei, too. Like it was a ball of yarn that he started unraveling and now it has gotten away from him completely.

“I don’t know,” he admits. Brienne is looking at him. He still can’t figure out what she feels about all this, and it makes him more frustrated. He used to be better at reading her, right? “It’s not like I’m...like I don’t think I can do it. I can. I’m not saying I want to quit.”

“No, I know you aren’t,” Brienne says gently. “But if you aren’t happy, there are a thousand other things you can do. Can I come visit this weekend?”

“What? Of course. If you want. But you really don’t have to...I can handle it.”

“I know,” Brienne says. “Humor me.”

* * *

Being a Lannister means a lot of things, but in terms of Jaime’s college experience it means that he was able to secure a single room to himself. The moment he gets Brienne inside it that Saturday morning, his lips are on hers. She’s warm and soft and big, and he remembers the exact amazing feel of every part of her the moment he starts kissing her. Her hair is slightly longer than it used to be, and he wants to run his hands through it. He reaches up to try and tug the elastic out, but she laughs and pulls back, putting a hand on his chest.

“Easy, boy,” she says dryly, though she lowers her lips to kiss him once more, firmly. “Plenty of time for that. But we need to talk.”

Jaime thinks of Brienne as she used to be, back before they were fully friends. He was terrible to her, so obviously her hesitation and shyness was partly based on that, but even when they first started dating, she was more likely to defer to him, like she was afraid of scaring him off by being too forceful about things. The longer they date, though, the more comfortable around him she is, and he can see that comfort now in the way she flops back on his bed and looks at him, casual and confident, trusting him not to misinterpret her words. Taking control so effortlessly.

“I really am sorry about being such a…” he starts, trying for wry and witty, like he thinks he used to be.

“Jaime,” Brienne says softly. “Come here.”

She tugs him closer to the bed so he’s standing in front of her. It’s raised high enough that his chest is roughly at the height of her stomach. He sighs and rests his hands on her knees, considering how to proceed.

“Lancel’s girlfriend,” he finally says. “Was trying to get me to sleep with her.”

“Okay,” Brienne says. He knows that her own insecurities are many and varied, and he knows that it’s probably taking a lot of willpower for her to keep herself from reacting to that.

“She was telling me about how girls like you, girls with soulmarks who have already met and are dating their soulmates, are big targets on campuses because of the implied challenge of it. Frats especially, I guess.”

“Yeah. I heard the same thing from Sarella,” Brienne admits. She’s looking at him curiously, waiting for more of an explanation.

“I don’t even remember why I got so fixated on you afterward. It wasn’t just about that. About soulmarks. It was about…she started talking about how some people don’t even care about soulmarks. And I started thinking about how it’s not the guarantee I always thought it was when I was a kid. Like, you know, you get together with your soulmate and then it’s just…you’re just happy forever. I know that isn’t how it works. But things with us are so good when we’re together, and I started getting…worried.”

“About the future?” Brienne asks. She’s carding her fingers gently through his hair as he speaks. Normally he’d find it distracting, but he thinks today he might need it. It’s grounding. Comforting.

“About your future,” he admits. “And mine. As people. You…you’re so smart, and you’re so good. And you actually _like_ soccer. I know female soccer players don’t make nearly as much as they should, but they’re still…I mean, you could go pro! I have a few more years of football left at the most, but I’m never going to get close to pro, even if I thought that was something I wanted to do.”

“Jaime…”

“I’m not trying to be down on myself. It’s just…it’s just true. I don’t bring nearly as much to the table. I’m miserable, Brienne.” He’s shocked that he said it, but he doesn’t think it isn’t true. “I am. I hate football. My friends here mean nothing to me. Everyone I care about is hours away. I don’t like it here. I came here for a sport I don’t even enjoy. My teammates are the _worst_.” A handful of them had mocked Brienne when one of them saw her in his profile picture on some social media platform. Making all sorts of comments about how she must be an absolute freak in bed if he was willing to put up with the rest of her. Jaime _loathes_ them. “Everyone hates school, I know, but…”

“Not everyone hates school,” she says gently.

“No, I know. That’s part of the problem. _You_ seem to be thriving, and I’m just…dead weight. The boyfriend you have this sense of obligation to, because I’m your soulmate and you feel like you _have _to like me, even though I call you in the middle of the day and I’m too needy and annoying and…”

“Jaime,” she says again, alarmed, and she wraps her arms around him this time, quieting his protests. “Jaime, I didn’t realize.”

“I didn’t want you to,” he admits, his voice muffled in her hoodie. His hoodie, actually, he realizes. The one he gave her, ages ago.

“When you were talking about transferring over the summer, I thought you were just…”

“Being annoying?” he guesses.

“Will you stop that? No. I thought it was just _me_ that was pulling you there. I thought you were going to give up everything else just because you wanted to be with me.”

“Just because,” he says, snorting.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, but you’re underselling yourself, like you always do. You’re plenty reason to make big life changes.”

“You know what I mean,” she repeats, softer, and she pulls back a little so that she can smile at him. “I didn’t realize you weren’t happy with everything else, too. So let’s figure it out.”

* * *

He doesn’t transfer, in the end, to the same school as Brienne. His grades really _aren’t_ good enough, and the business program at Brienne’s school is one of those ones that comes with a pretty name but not much actual respect, so Brienne talks him out of it. But she does her research, because of course she does, and she finds a school that seems like it would be perfect for him.

He quits football. He finishes the semester. He transfers.

His new school is about two hours away from home, and it’s less than an hour away from Brienne. It’s not close enough to get an apartment together, but it’s close enough that they can switch off visiting each other on weekends. And sometimes they can make the drive back home together, so Jaime gets to see Tyrion more, and Brienne can see her father. Jaime makes some friends in his new school, Peck and Pia especially, who are actually _kind_, and not just surface-level friends who barely even know him, or the kind of friends who are mostly friends out of convenience and not because he actually likes them.

And if he ever doubts. If he ever questions. If he ever thinks that maybe Amerei was right when she said that most people don’t care about soulmarks anymore. He just has to remember that steely certainty in Brienne’s eyes when he told her everything. That reminder that this relationship is a foundation. A beginning for _both _of them. There’s so much time left to figure everything out.


	2. Cersei Lannister, RA: The Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne's POV the events leading to and immediately following Cersei Lannister: RA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted on tumblr! Enough people have requested either Jaime or Brienne that I am also probably going to do a Jaime one, too!

Brienne Tarth is tired of being Jaime Lannister’s secret.

She isn’t tired of the way he looks at her, and she isn’t tired of the way he touches her, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of the way he puts his all into every single kiss. But she’s tired of all the sneaking around, and she’s tired of him treating her like a _bro_ everywhere except behind the locked doors of their dorm rooms.

She had hated him at first. Most of that was his fault, because he can be _insufferable_, but she knows that some of it was her reluctance to trust him. In her defense, he’s the prettiest boy she’s ever seen. He was too pretty to trust right away. Guys not even a quarter as good looking as him have treated her terribly for years, and she had assumed that he was one of them.

Even he would have to admit that she had _cause, _at least at first. He was rude and oblivious and never seemed to understand when he was being hurtful. He was the RA for the boy’s side of the floor, so she was forced to see him at floor meetings, and he was the twin brother to _Brienne’s_ RA, Cersei, so he was inescapable at the events that Cersei threw for her girls, and he always found some reason to tease her.

(“Because I liked you!” he would often point out later, after they started hooking up. Brienne still finds that a little hard to believe.)

Cersei is a good RA. Jaime probably isn’t, but he knows how to talk his sister into letting them share floor events as much as possible, dragging a few of his boys along. Brienne had hated him for that, for the laziness that it showed, and she hated him for being such an asshole to her whenever he spoke to her, and she hated him when they shared a class and were partnered by their odious teacher, Professor Hoat.

But that project changed things, and now she doesn’t hate him at all, and that’s the problem.

It was easy when she was just attracted to Jaime. It would have been harder to _not_ be attracted to Jaime. Even Margaery and Sansa drool over him, and they’re the least straight people Brienne knows.

“He’s just _too_ good-looking,” Sansa says often, in those first few weeks of school when Brienne complains about him perhaps too much. “Obviously the gods compensated for all those physical gifts by making him intolerable inside.”

Which was true! And funny! But then Brienne actually got to know him, and she found that Jaime’s rudeness and obliviousness weren’t seeped into him like some kind of soul rot. No, he’s deeply _kind_ beneath his outward bravado. He’s quietly nervous about most things, and he borders on insecure when it comes to friendships. There’s something tentative about him, and Brienne recognizes it behind his rude bluster once she knows to look for it, and that’s where the disaster starts.

* * *

When they become friends, Jaime is obvious about his affection for her. He likes to tug on her hand to lead her places, taking too long to let go afterward. He loves playing soccer with her, Sansa’s brother Robb, and their friends out at the old field no one uses. He always claims her in public when they’re in a group, walking with her, talking to her, devoting most if not all of his attention to whatever she’s doing. She gets the impression that he was probably a little lonely, because he doesn’t seem to have many friends outside his sister and the ones Brienne introduces him to. She sees him talking with kids sometimes on campus, but he always leaves them when he sees her coming, so she can’t imagine they’re that close.

And then he kisses her.

They’re walking back from the soccer field. It’s starting to get dark. Robb has a date with Cersei, so it’s just Jaime and Brienne. Brienne’s mocking him for something stupid. Tripping over something on the sidewalk or failing to watch where he’s going. She isn’t even sure, later, because the kiss wipes everything away. But she’s talking and laughing and mimicking him, and then suddenly he grabs her hand to pull her to a stop, and then he’s on his toes, and his lips are pressed against hers.

It isn’t a very forceful kiss, or a very long kiss. It’s her first kiss. Jaime’s nervous when he pulls away. He’s still too handsome. More attractive than any boy she’s ever seen.

“Did you just kiss me?” she asks.

“Only if you liked it,” he replies. He pushes some long hair out of his eyes and bites his lip and manages to somehow look even more beautiful.

“What?” she asks. She finally registers what’s just happened, and her face heats up, and her blood rushes in her ears. “You kissed me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. More nervous now. She doesn’t understand. “Did you not want me to?”

“I didn’t say that,” she says. “But…why?”

“What do you mean, why? Why else? I wanted to. I like you. I wanted to kiss you.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Brienne says, defensiveness flaring within her. “Why did you want to?”

“Because I like you,” Jaime says again, looking at her as if _she’s_ the one doing something incomprehensible. “I kissed you because I like you.”

“Why?” she asks, and he laughs again, and he throws his hands in the air a bit.

“I don’t know! I just do. You’re just amazing. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

He sounds confused and injured, and Brienne thinks, _oh gods, he actually means it, doesn’t he? _Somehow that’s more upsetting than the thought that he might have just been struck by some momentary madness.

“I guess,” she says.

“You _guess_? Please at least tell me if…”

“I like you too,” she says.

* * *

It escalates sort of quickly from there. Or maybe it spirals. Jaime is kind and gentle with her, but it’s intimidating. He doesn’t say anything to her about his previous experiences, but she knows he must have had quite a few. He always seems so self-assured, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Brienne’s grateful for it, in a very practical way. Sure, he makes her head spin and she can’t get enough of the way he looks at her. That’s true. He’s almost too beautiful to look at, and he learns her body quickly, and all of it is _so_ _good_. But she’s practical about it, because she knows what it is, and she knows it’s temporary, and she’s grateful for it because it’s nice that something fleeting and impossible and wonderful can also be so educational. When he’s tired of her, she’ll at least be left with _experience_ to show for it. And she can enjoy it in the meantime. She can pretend to be the kind of girl who can hold on to someone like Jaime Lannister.

But then months pass, and they keep hooking up, and Brienne begins to realize that she’s not nearly as grown-up and practical as she has been trying to convince herself she is. She had been so sure that she could be happy with what she had. It was more than she had ever expected, so why wouldn’t she be fine with it? She didn’t need a grand romance in college. It was enough that a very beautiful boy wanted to kiss her and show her everything about sex she didn’t think she would ever get a chance to know. It _should_ be enough.

But it isn’t. When they’re together, whether it’s sex or fooling around or even just kissing, she’s actually fine. She can let all those nerves go. He looks at her like he thinks she’s beautiful, and it’s impossible not to believe him when he’s making her feel so good and saying so many wonderful things. And immediately after, Jaime is always soft. He pulls her close and nestles behind her, his arm tight around her. On those few weekends when Sansa goes home and it’s just Jaime and Brienne, he’ll even sleep over, and he’ll tease her and laugh with her just like he does when they’re in public, and it feels like it’s how it _should_ be. They can be friends and something else at once. She likes that she’s able to make such a beautiful person feel so good. Her own insecurities disappear when he’s gasping her name and looking at her with wide, wanting green eyes.

But every time she brings up the idea of going public, or at least letting people know they’re hooking up, he shoots the idea down.

Oh, he does it kindly. He says it like he wants her to think that he’s just taking _her_ needs into consideration. And she doesn’t push it, because being with him is still better than _not_ being with him.

It just _builds_, is the thing. It starts out bearable, and she bears it. It gets worse, but it’s still endurable, so she endures it. Then it becomes this pressure inside her that increases until she can no longer ignore it. She wants too much. He has already given her more than she expected, but it isn’t enough for her. She wants his love, too. She doesn’t want to be his secret hookup. She wants to be his girlfriend. If he doesn’t want the same thing, then she doesn’t think she can handle anything at all.

Two weeks before she finally ends it, she starts to plan for it. They’re friends, before anything else, and they hang out with the same group, so she knows that anything less than a clean break will make things weird. A few days before the break between semesters seems like a good time. It will give her a month to recover, and when they get back, she can be normal around him.

It seems like it will probably be a bit more difficult than that, but when she’s apart from him, maybe it’ll be easy to focus on the fact that he didn’t want any of their friends to know about them. Maybe it’ll be easy to focus on the fact that she was falling in love with him while probably being only one out of a rotation of girls who probably _all _fell a little bit in love with him.

And even if he wasn’t lying about her being the only one, he still doesn’t care for her the way she cares for him. She knows that for a fact. It was amazing while it lasted, but it was always going to end sometime. Better for her to end it on her own terms and move on with her life instead of falling deeper into this trap she’s made for herself.

* * *

She sends him the text a few days before the end of the semester.

She wants to tell him in person. She thinks she probably owes him _that_ much. He’s still her friend. It’s not his fault she wanted more than they agreed to. But she _can’t_. She’ll cry if she does, or she’ll let his expression fool her into thinking that he cares more deeply than he does, though she knows he just has that _face_, this look to him that makes him look like someone who loves too freely. She’ll want to spare his feelings or she’ll believe that they’re stronger than they are, and she will have missed her chance to do this cleanly and give herself enough time to make sure their friendship can survive this.

So she crafts a text. She’s very careful with it. She wishes she had told Sansa or Margaery any of it, because she knows they’d be a great help now, telling her how to break this off. Instead she circles around and around on the right words and the right tone until finally she’s sick of herself, and she sends it.

He doesn’t reply for hours.

When he finally does, it’s short. Terse. Lowercase letters, no punctuation. In a rush, maybe, or hurt. This is why she couldn’t do it in person. She reads so easily into emotions that aren’t there. He asks her if he’s done something wrong, but she says he hasn’t. She tells him he was wonderful. She puts it as politely as she can without actually typing out “it’s not you, it’s me”, and then he stops responding, and she feels like a weight has been lifted off her chest.

She’s going to miss what they had, and she’s going to be nervous until she gets back at the end of the break, because she really _doesn’t_ want to lose his friendship, and she knows that boys can be prickly about this kind of thing. But she feels better already. Stronger. Like she did the right thing in looking out for herself.

* * *

The night before one of her last finals, Brienne is talked into going with Sansa and Margaery to a sleepover that Cersei is throwing in the common area of the floor. It’s fun, and Cersei is putting in an effort to be nicer than usual—she’s always _nice_, kind of, but with this undercurrent of judgement that’s missing now. Brienne finds herself telling them everything.

It’s difficult to look Cersei in the eye while she’s spilling this secret, considering how alike she and Jaime look, but she thinks she’s vague enough that no one would guess it’s Jaime she’s talking about secretly hooking up with. It’s not like Jaime’s the first person who would come to mind to these girls, given what they both look like. Even Sansa. Even Margaery. They probably assume it’s _relative_, when Brienne says that the kid she’s been hooking up with is way too hot for her.

_Well sure_, they’ll think. _That could be anybody._

But no one laughs at her. No one treats the suggestion of Brienne no longer being a virgin as some absurd farce. No one accuses her of lying. They give her good advice. They praise her for looking out for herself. When Brienne goes to sleep that night, she still misses Jaime. She still wishes it had been different. But she feels proud of herself, and that _helps. _

* * *

Then she’s the last one on the floor. The only one with a final the following afternoon. Sansa’s already long gone. _Everyone’s_ gone. Even Cersei, who was the last one here, has headed home. Jaime, Brienne knows, has been back at home for a few days already. She tells Cersei to wish Jaime a happy holiday for her, which makes her feel very mature and grown up and hopefully signals to Jaime that she still wants to be friends with him. He hasn’t texted her since she broke up with him.

Well, not broke up with him. Whatever it’s called when you’re hooking up with someone and you make the decision to stop.

She texts with Sansa and Margaery, teases Robb some more about his relationship with Cersei, and she exchanges a few messages with her father before finally turning in for her final night before break.

She almost texts Jaime, but she doesn’t. She understands if he feels a bit spurned or annoyed that she doesn’t want to hook up anymore. She just hopes he’s over it by the time he comes back. 

* * *

There’s knocking on her door in the middle of the night. Brienne wakes quickly, alert almost immediately, all but falling out of bed and stumbling to the door. She looks through the peephole, and she freezes when she sees him. It’s too late to pretend she isn’t here. She wasn’t exactly graceful slipping out of her tall bed. And even if she was, she doesn’t think she could turn him away. He looks terrible. Drunk or sick with a cold. His cheeks are flushed and everything else is unnaturally pale. His blonde curls are matted and damp from a shower.

She’s worried for him, because he looks quite pathetic, but the longer she stands there, the more that worry fades. Actually, she might be _furious _at the sight of him.

She was strong. She did the right thing. She ended it at the right time for both of them. Did he seriously come all this way for a fucking hookup? She thought he understood.

She pulls open the door, and he sags gratefully, some of the tension leaving him.

“Brienne, thank the gods,” he says, and she sees that he’s carrying a bag.

“Did you lose your key?” she asks. It’s the only thing she can think of. Maybe he forgot he had a final and had to rush back to make it in time for tomorrow, only to realize he forgot his room key. That might make sense. She’s the only person still here, so maybe he’s expecting to crash with her. She can’t decide if she’s relieved it isn’t for a hookup or not.

“What?” he asks. He looks down at his bag. “What? No. Cersei told me. She said you love me.”

“_What_?” Brienne asks. How did Cersei know? How could she have guessed? Unless Jaime told her that he and Brienne were hooking up? She had been so sure that he wouldn’t, but maybe…

“She said you were hooking up with someone and you loved him and you broke up with him by text which, by the way, fucking _hurt_. But you didn’t know, did you? I thought it was obvious. I thought I’d scare you off if I said it. Brienne, fucking _of course_ I love you. I can’t believe you didn’t...Brienne.”

He’s looking at her so openly, with such a mingling of emotions. He looked like this the night he kissed her, too.

“Are you drunk?” she asks, because she doesn’t know what to say. Jaime frowns at her.

“Tyrion thought it might shut me up. I was miserable over you. I made Bronn drive me here. I have a key for my room if I need it but I wanted to be with you. I wanted to see you.”

He looks so earnest. She isn’t used to seeing him like this. He’s usually all wry sarcasm and annoyingly valid confidence. It makes her nervous, to be the one who is the least openly affected. Hiding her emotions is easy. Showing them, on the other hand...

“Come in,” she says, pulling him gently out of the hallway. She knows that she’s the only one left on the whole floor, but she’s still a bit itchy at the thought of someone hearing all this. When the door is safely locked behind them, she turns and looks at Jaime. He’s still looking at her. Wavering on his feet. “Jaime, sit down,” she says, pulling out her desk chair. He looks far too unhappy at the prospect, and she almost wants to laugh at the miserable sulk.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know,” he says as he sinks down into it. “I’m sorry you didn’t know. I thought I was obvious enough. I’m sorry. I thought you _wanted_ to keep it secret.”

“I asked, remember? More than once. I asked if you wanted to tell people.”

“And I said I didn’t need to, if you didn’t want,” Jaime protests. “I thought you were just asking because you knew that was what I wanted.”

“What _you_ wanted?” Brienne asks. She thinks back. Half a dozen moments when she floated the idea. She’s always been good at making things polite and unobtrusive. Was it _too_ polite? Did it really come off as if she hadn’t _wanted_ to?

“Gods, Brienne,” Jaime laughs. “I’ve wanted to tell everyone for months. Do you know how hard it is for me to _not_ talk about it?”

She thinks of the way he’d look at her when they were lying in bed together. The way he’d smile when she pulled him close. And there’s other things that occur to her only now. Jaime’s shameless about absolutely everything else in his life. Why did she assume that _she_ was the one thing he would develop shame for?

“Oh,” she says. “I thought…”

“I know,” Jaime sighs. Watery and dejected. “Cersei told me. I don’t know if she was goading me on purpose or if she really didn’t know I was the one you were seeing, but she made it pretty clear how much of an idiot I’ve been.”

“You haven’t been an idiot,” Brienne says. She hates it when he says things like that about himself. She leaves her place by the door and kneels in front of the chair. Her heart is racing. “You haven’t. I just…I didn’t think…it’s hard for me to trust people completely, and I just assumed.”

“I love you,” Jaime says, quiet and a little miserable. “Do you believe that?”

Brienne hesitates. Does she? It seems too good to be true. For him to love her. But he’s looking at her the way he is, and he came all this way. He’s _Jaime_. He’s lazy and doesn’t commit to anything. He never takes anything seriously. But he came here tonight, and she can’t imagine he would go to that level of effort for just _any_ reason.

“I believe it,” she manages. “I trust you.”

He sighs loudly, relief and a muttered, “thank the gods” before he swoops in and kisses her on the forehead, pulling her into a hug. She’s surprised by the gesture, and her face heats in response, and she wraps her arms tight around him.

* * *

It’s odd, sleeping together in the same bed when they haven’t even fooled around, but it feels nice to wake up and find him curled against her back. When she rolls over to look at him, she finds him barely awake and smiling sleepily at her.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks, because she’s afraid to ask anything more specific.

_Do you still want me? _

_Do you regret coming all this way to get me? _

_Were you just drunk?_

Jaime leans in and kisses her. Morning breath and all. Slow and sweet and _thorough_, in a way that seems like it’s designed to try and stamp out all those thoughts that won’t leave her alone.

“Next time you dump me, maybe you should do it to my face if you actually want it to stick,” he says. “Apparently I’m one of _those_ exes.”

“I thought you were going to be hooking up with some other girl by the time you got back to your house,” Brienne admits, which makes Jaime laugh ruefully.

“I thought _I_ was being stupid,” he says. “But here you were, out-stupiding me. Brienne. Come on. It’s only you.”

Brienne ducks her head and rests it on his shoulder.

“I might need a little longer to believe that this is real,” she says. “But…we can tell people. I would like for people to know. If that’s what you want.”

“Can we back-date it?” Jaime asks. “Pretend like this has all been a real relationship the way I thought it was? I’d like to be able to say you’re my girlfriend of a couple of months, not hours.”

“Yeah,” Brienne says. “I think we can do that.”

“Good.” Jaime sounds pleased, and when she lifts her head to look at him, she sees that his smile is crooked and disbelieving and just…everything. “If you take a little time to believe it, that’s okay. I’ll be here. Just. If you ever doubt my feelings for you, just ask Tyrion about how pathetic I was yesterday.”

Brienne kisses him again, because she can, and because she wants to, and because he still looks a little sad. A little bit of tension behind the eyes. Nerves. She feels them too. This is a big step for both of them, for different reasons.

“I will,” she says. “Not because I doubt your feelings. I just want to laugh at you.”

Jaime smiles, and he kisses her again, and Brienne makes a note to thank Cersei. She’s still not sure exactly what Cersei’s plan was, because Jaime tried explaining what happened last night, and it didn’t really answer any of Brienne’s questions. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Brienne knows that she and Jaime never would have figured it out without her


	3. Dying to be Born Again: The Bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm Dying to be Born Again - Alternate Ending. Daenerys finds a reason to keep Brienne and Jaime in Kings Landing instead of allowing them to leave for Winterfell. Instead of Sansa, it's a tourney that helps Jaime realize his wife is in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this an alternate ending to this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19744369 in which Jaime and Brienne are married after the events of a slightly altered season 8 because it's convenient and because they want to hang out. To refresh your memory: Jaime and Brienne never hook up at Winterfell. Daenerys is queen and doesn't trust Jaime. Jon and Sansa are ruling in the north. In the original ending, Jaime and Brienne went to Winterfell after the wedding and Sansa told Jaime how Brienne feels about him, but in this one, they don't get the chance to go, and are still in Kings Landing months later!

Jaime and his new bride are meant to head to Winterfell soon after the wedding, but the queen keeps finding reasons to delay them. Brienne puts up with it with a kind of placid acceptance that hides an obvious wariness. Tyrion is increasingly nervous, though he pretends not to be. Jaime isn't nearly so worried. Daenerys may not be fond of him, but she _is_ fond of his new wife, and that means that Jaime is safe. The new queen wouldn't risk igniting a war with the north, and that's exactly what would happen if she did anything to slight Jon and Sansa’s favorite sworn sword.

"I’m quite safe," he says to Brienne one night after they've gotten into bed. "You shouldn't listen to Tyrion. He's paranoid."

"It isn't paranoia if you're right," Brienne points out, and the look she gives him across the pillows is filled with concern. His hand twitches with a want to reach out and brush those lines on her brow away with his thumb. Maybe one day.

Jaime isn't used to patience. He's never been patient before. With Cersei, it was always about seizing the moments they had. There had been so few of them, especially as they got older. If they were alone and unwatched, he _had_ to act, or he wouldn't get to have her. Perhaps he's gotten softer as he's gotten older, but he doesn't feel that same need for haste. It's funny: his years grow shorter, and already he's less golden than he used to be. He wants to still have _something_ to offer a younger wife before it's all gone! He should be mad with the need to bed her. But he just _isn’t_. Brienne isn't Cersei.

Brienne isn't Cersei, and he adores her for it, and she needs a more gentle wooing if she's ever going to believe his affections are sincere.

"Tyrion isn't right," he says. He makes his voice gentle instead of touching her. "Daenerys likes you too much to move against your husband. I have nothing to fear as long as I have my strong lady knight to protect me."

Brienne rolls her eyes at him, but he sees the smile that pokes at the corners of her mouth.

* * *

The delay lasts two whole moons. Jaime still doesn’t think Daenerys is much of a queen, but it’s encouraging at least that she can operate cleverly when she wants something. She can’t be bothered to attend half her small council meetings, but she effortlessly finds reasons to keep Brienne busy. She raises issues with the goldcloaks, though they are always easily solved. She decides to create a fighting force of women among the smallfolk who can protect their own; obviously, Brienne is needed to organize it. They can’t possibly go to Winterfell until it’s finished. And then Daenerys has a spy in her operations, and Brienne is the only person she trusts to find them. They are problems easily fixed. They aren't real issues at all. She fears Brienne going back north with her secrets, perhaps, or maybe she just wants to keep Brienne close because she hopes to win her allegiance with enough titles and sweet smiles and gestures of appreciation. Jaime won’t complain; he gets a bigger room and softer sheets and dedicated servants out of the deal. He’d like to be away from Kings Landing, but the north _is _cold and miserable, so there are at least some bright sides to the queen’s maneuvering.

The politics are better left to people with more of a head for it, like his brother. Jaime spent years trying to interpret the wishes of a mercurial queen. He has been granted a second chance at life, and he doesn't exactly fancy spending _this_ one doing the same.

* * *

Around the midway point of the second month, Missandei and Tyrion conspire to involve Jaime in the planning of a tourney for the queen’s nameday. Tyrion frames it as an opportunity to show Daenerys some of what Westeros has to offer. Jaime understands the real purpose: they want to show the people that things will continue as normal. There will be tourneys and feasts and grand displays. Westeros has changed, but it doesn’t have to change _too_ much.

Jaime thinks the whole thing is absurd, and he doesn't think the dragon queen will even enjoy it very much, but his wife asks him to play along, and so he does. It obviously sets Tyrion's mind at ease, too, that Jaime is involved in something for the queen's benefit, and Jaime is glad for that. If only because Tyrion's worry is otherwise so annoying.

And, actually, it's _fun_ to have something more substantial to do. Tyrion has to handle actual serious affairs, and visiting dignitaries require Missandei's presence, but most of the time Jaime and the translator work together. Jaime usually feels like a bit of an idiot around her, what with her ability to speak ten thousand languages or so, but he feels slightly more on even ground when they talk about tourneys. It's been a few years, but he _knows_ tourneys. He can speak about them with some authority, and he understands what they need to do to pull a decent one together on such short notice. He'd thought that after the wars he'd be useless. Fighting and then planning to go fight some more was all he really knew how to do. But he’s useful here, in this. Silly and pointless as it might be. It makes him feel more like himself again, but in a way that doesn’t hurt or chafe. A renewal of purpose, somehow.

Brienne is pleased with him for it, and pleased _for_ him, he can tell. He loves her all the more for it, for her plain happiness to see _him_ so happy. Nothing is better than the hour or so after they climb into bed, when they lie beside each other and talk about their days. Brienne is always soft with him now, but she's softest there, under the blankets. She stops holding herself aloof. There's space between them still when Jaime wishes there wasn't, but it seems surmountable. Like he could reach out and touch her, and she might smile.

* * *

Tyrion allows himself to be reluctantly impressed once the tourney has begun and no major disasters have hindered it. The lists are a little thin, considering all the wars and death of the past few years, but that's the only reason Jaime was accepted into the joust, so he convinces his brother that it’s a good thing. It’s not like Daenerys will know the difference anyway.

Brienne looks at Jaime with concern when he reveals his intentions to participate, and he laughs at the expression on her face.

"Your support means the world," he says, and she blushes furiously and stammers, trying to find some way to apologize. He doesn't want her to. He soothes her nervousness with his brightest smile. "And besides. My wife will claim victory in the melee, so I have to at least put in a good showing in the joust."

"Ah, so it's some kind of masculine pride," Brienne says, and he laughs at her.

"No," he says. "The gods know I don't have much of _that_ left these days. I was cloaked in my wife's colors, remember."

"Jaime…" she starts. Hesitant. He almost sighs, but that would make it worse. She never seems to understand when he's japing anymore. Those months spent together in Kings Landing before their marriage made her quicker to laugh and quicker to fire back at him when he teased her, but since the betrothal she has been afraid. Afraid of his unhappiness or afraid of his ire, though he's never given her any _true_ indication that he's anything but pleased with their arrangement. Even if she doesn’t know how much he loves her, she should at least know that he _likes_ her, and that he likes being married to her.

"You _do_ get so hung up on it," he says ruefully. "Maybe you're the one with the pride that needs to be soothed. Do you wish you had married someone more…I don't know. Clegane?"

She laughs abruptly, and he has hope of the friendship that grew easily between them in the months after the war, before this marriage happened and made things awkward between them.

"You know I wouldn't," she says. "If I had to marry…"

"Ah, yes, if you were forced to marry _anyone_, it might as well be me.”

"Yes, exactly," she says. She's still jesting, though there's a softness in her eyes that he notices sometimes. It always makes it seem as if she's going to lean in and kiss him. She never does, of course, but the feeling is there, and it always sends a bit of a shiver through him, and he wonders if this is what younger men feel when they fall in love for the first time. Jaime was in love with a single woman for the whole of his life. He never got to experience these kinds of things before.

"Well, when I win the joust and crown you queen of love and beauty, perhaps you'll find it’s worth being married to me," he says.

* * *

Of course, he doesn't win the joust. Of _course_ he doesn't win the joust! He'd be past his prime even if he _hadn’t_ lost a hand. He'd have probably fared better in the melee, all things considered, but the joust was always his event.

When he's unhorsed and helped off the field, Brienne meets him there, and she has this look on her face like she's expecting him to be furious, but he's not. He's giddy, nearly. He unhorsed three men before being thrown himself. Three men! Without his right hand!

When she sees his smile, she smiles in turn, and she talks about his form and praises him for doing as well as he did, and he finds himself sheepishly pleased by his wife's warmth. The melee is next, because Missandei insisted on all the events occurring on the same day. The following day will be for events from other lands, to showcase the kinds of things that the dragon queen’s armies do between times of war. It's a good strategy, but it means that Jaime has to take his seat beside Tyrion in the stands still covered in dirt and bleeding sluggishly from a spot on his forehead where his helmet dug into his skin when he fell.

Jaime keeps up conversation with Tyrion, and he really _shouldn’t _be nervous for Brienne, because he knows that she can fight better than any of these idiots, but he can't help it. She's his wife. She's his wife, and his lady, and his love, and he wants to be at her back, protecting her always. Maybe he _should_ have joined the melee, though she wouldn't have thanked him for it.

The maidens in the stands are gasping and jumping up and covering their eyes, and he feels as if he's one of them, though he sits very still and refuses to outwardly react. Daenerys watches the fight with a kind of gritted-teeth determination not to look away, while Missandei's eyes track Grey Worm on the field with a small, pleased smile.

In the end, Brienne is the only one left standing, and Jaime can finally breathe again while Tyrion laughs at him and slaps him on the back.

"Your wife is the best fighter in Westeros," he says. "And now the whole of Kings Landing knows it."

Brienne's face is red from exertion when she removes her helmet, and she's breathing hard, but she's smiling as everyone cheers for her, and it makes her beautiful to him. Not classically beautiful. Not beautiful like Cersei was, or like Daenerys is, or like Missandei is. But she's beautiful, and he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone for thinking so. He's on his feet, grinning, clapping as best as a one-handed man _can_ clap. Brienne walks to the dais, and Daenerys smiles broadly at her as she announces her the winner.

She hands Brienne the flowered crown, and Tyrion begins to laugh, because the grin on Brienne's face is suddenly _cheeky_, and both brothers know exactly what she’s going to do.

* * *

If his wife expects him to take the crown off anytime soon, she's mistaken. He wears it proudly, and no one dares say anything to his face about it. Oh, they'll say their usual drivel behind his back, like they always do. But he'd rather have them talk about Jaime Lannister's unmanning by a fierce warrior woman than Jaime Lannister's penchant for fucking his sister and killing his kings. Perhaps his pride would have taken a hit once, but he's older now, and he doesn't have the use for pride that he once did. His only thought for it now is to be proud that his wife is such a fearsome fighter.

The festivities move inside for speeches and some kind of feast. Jaime isn't altogether invested in hearing a bunch of fawning nobles sing the praises of the woman who is technically keeping he and his wife prisoner, so he slips away when he can. Tyrion and Bronn and Podrick are talking Brienne up to anyone who will listen, so they're all distracted enough that he can make his way back up to his rooms without being harassed.

He catches a girl on his way up. Alys, her name is. She's one of the ones who always gives Brienne extra attention, which Jaime likes. He asks if she could find someone to draw him a bath, and she scurries away with a shared laugh at the state of him.

"I heard your wife won the melee," she says. She's eyeing the crown on his head. "Appears I've heard right."

There’s something wistful and just a bit jealous in her voice. If he were a more gallant sort of man, he'd give her the crown and say some pretty words, but he's a rather selfish man instead, and his wife gave him this crown. He means to keep it until the roses turn to dust. 

* * *

He takes it off and sets it on the vanity his wife hardly ever uses while the girls fill the bath and then leave him to it. The screen is up around the tub, but he still feels odd stripping down fully in this space he shares with Brienne. They're always so careful not to cross that line, though they've seen each other fully bare before, and though they sleep each night in the same bed.

He sinks into the tub gratefully. He's more sore now that a few hours have passed. Perhaps there's a reason old knights don't often joust. He feels weary down to his bones, and for a few minutes he simply soaks, allowing the warmth to seep in and soothe his aches. The water is nearly scalding, but he doesn't mind.

After a while, he begins to scrub with the bit of cloth the girl left for him. The roughness of it against his skin finally wakes him up a bit, but still he's comfortable, languid. Drifting happily. He hasn’t felt this relaxed since the queen told him he was to be married.

So of course that's the moment Brienne enters the room.

Brienne normally slips into their shared quarters with a timidity that makes Jaime want to laugh and rage at once. They're _her_ rooms, but she acts as if she's an intruder every time. This time, though, she _bursts_ in, flinging open the door and entering without a thought, and it's only after she's walked past the screen that she realizes.

"Oh!" she exclaims. It's half as if she was looking for him and has now found him and half as if she's found something unexpected in her stew. "What are you doing?"

"I would think that would be obvious," he says. He can’t help a glance to make sure that the water is clouded enough with soap to obscure most of him. Not that he's some wilting maiden, but _she_ can be, and a full view of his cock might send her sprinting back out again.

"Tyrion said I ought to look for you," she says. "Were you very angry, then?"

She's asking him if he's angry, but she's the one who sounds it. He frowns at her. He can't tell what she's talking about. Angry? For what reason would he be angry?

"I'm bathing," he manages awkwardly. Gods. This is _painful_. She's still just standing there blinking at him, and maybe he would be flattered if she looked anything other than utterly _confused_ by it.

"Oh," she says.

"What am I meant to be angry about?"

"Oh," she says again. "The crown."

"The crown? _My_ crown?" Jaime scoffs, and he gestures with his cloth over to the vanity. "Tyrion's always convinced he knows how everyone feels about everything. Too bad he's a fool. I could not be more pleased with my prize."

"Oh," again, and Jaime feels increasingly foolish huddled in this tub. There was a time it would have made him angry and defensive, but that doesn't happen now. He finds it funny instead. Brienne flushes when he laughs helplessly and leans back against the edge, trying to look more relaxed.

"What did you want, then?" he asks.

"To make it right, if you _were _angry," Brienne says, and he sighs at her.

"You should know better," he chides, and she flushes. She moves to a more comfortable spot by the vanity, and she leans against it. If she's at all bothered by his nakedness, she hides it well. He thinks he would prefer it if she _was_ bothered, actually. If she had to look away and blush or had to leave the room, he'd at least know she was affected. But no, this is Brienne. Sensible, dutiful Brienne.

"I wasn't sure," she says. "Your pride is notorious."

"Is it? I suppose I _am_ rather proud of my wife for beating all those fighters in the melee."

"And my husband unhorsed three men."

"He did, including Jorah Mormont, who defeated him once," Jaime says happily. "Granted, we are both older than we were, but he still has both his hands."

"Speaking of," Brienne says with a thoughtful frown. "Would you like help with that?"

She's watching Jaime as he attempts to lather up his hair with his one hand and stump. Jaime's the one blushing now. If he was less prideful, maybe he would have some squire or serving girl do this for him, but he hasn't ever bothered to ask. He’s just not usually doing it with an _audience. _

"I can manage," he says, but he says it lightly enough that she will know he's not upset by her offer. He shrugs one shoulder. "Unless you don't mind."

He says it only because he is an idiot, and only because he wants to soften the blow, and only because he's _certain_ that Brienne will stay exactly where she is. But no, impossibly, she leaves the safety of the vanity and crosses the room to him.

He's half hard before she even puts her hands on him, but it's worse when she moves his hand and stump brusquely aside and starts to drag her fingers through his wet hair. She isn't gentle with him. No, she uses her blunt fingernails to massage the oil in. She pulls at it, her fingers tangling. It's sharp and painful and, _gods_. He's almost literally panting from want, biting his lip to keep from groaning.

"You really _did_ do well in the joust," she's saying. "Daenerys was pleased you lost. I don't think she liked that you beat Jorah."

"Of course not," he manages. It's only slightly breathless. Her fingertips scrape along his scalp and he suppresses a full-body shiver. What had been a half-hardness is now a painful arousal, and he keeps his hips still only through the kind of superhuman willpower that a man learns when he spends his adult life lusting after his own sister, the queen. “She liked that _you_ won, though.”

"I think she thought I was being funny by offering you the crown." Brienne’s fingers stop, suddenly. Like she has said something she didn't mean to. The haze of _want_ that had fallen over him recedes just a bit, and he turns to look at her after making sure the water is still cloudy around him and there's no chance that her sudden muteness is related to his uncooperative arousal. Brienne is staring back at him, stricken. His mind catches up to her words.

_She thought I was being funny_.

"But you weren't," he says slowly. Brienne's hands are still in his hair, and one of them _pulls_ when she unconsciously turns her hand into a fist. It goes straight to his cock, and he gasps and winces at once, and Brienne releases him as if she has slapped him, mortified.

"I'm sorry," she says. She starts to stand, but he stops her, reaching back and grabbing her hand on the rim of the tub.

"It's fine," he says. His voice is very distant. His throat is very dry. Her eyes are enormous, and this close, he can see her terror so clearly. Why is she afraid? He's a fool, but he's not so much a fool he can't follow it. "Brienne. What were you saying?"

Her eyes are searching his, now, and he knows that they are both of a same mind. Both afraid to say it, exactly, but both wavering on the edge. He keeps remembering the way she agreed to marry him. The way she called it sensible. The way she has kept a very careful distance from him since, almost like the very careful distance he has kept from her.

"She thinks it was a joke," Brienne breathes. "That I…" He waits, and her fingers stir under his, like she wants to wrest her hand away. She doesn't. Her fingers still. She exhales slowly. "That I crowned you."

"But it wasn't," he prompts again.

"But it wasn't," she agrees. There is a miserable set to her shoulders, like she is bracing for some horrific blow, but Jaime can only smile at her.

"Thank the gods," he says. "It was going to be difficult to explain to you why I kept it so long after the joke was meant to wear off."

"What?" she asks.

"You gave me a crown," he says slowly. "And I meant to keep it. Because it was from you. And because whether you meant it as a joke or not, I didn't receive it as one."

He holds her hand tighter against the rim, and she's staring at him. He has a moment of self-consciousness, but…no. No, he's not wrong. She is too shaken for that. His smile grows. He strokes his thumb along the back of her hand, hoping that she'll understand, but of course she doesn't. She looks down at it as if she thinks he has suffered some kind of injury. He can't stop smiling.

"What," she starts. She stops. She starts again. "What do you...?"

He laughs, then, and her face is flaming red. She won't say it. He knows she won't.

"You'll want to call me a liar, I know. You'll think I'm japing. I'm not. I love you."

She gasps the way he had when she put her fingers into his hair. He's half sure she's going to run. He holds her hand tighter. It's awkward to turn around even more in the bath and look at her while still keeping himself covered, but he does. Her eyes are wide with shock.

"I do," he says. It would be easy to laugh this off. Tell her he's kidding. He doesn't want to. "I wanted to marry you because I love you."

"You wanted to marry me because I'm convenient," she says.

"If you knew how badly I've wanted you these past few moons, you wouldn't be saying that. Gods no. It's torturous. If I wanted someone convenient, I'd pick a wife I had no feelings for at all."

"But," she says. "Cersei."

And, well. His arousal fades a bit at _that_ reminder. Yes, Cersei. He loved Cersei. He loves her still. It wasn't healthy, what they had, and the more time he spends with Brienne, the more certain he is of that. But he did love her.

"I loved her," he admits. "But that has no bearing on whether I love you now. I do."

Her eyes are on him. She hovers. He watches as she reaches out one of her hands and touches her fingers to his hair. She looks so wary of him, and he wants to smile, but he doesn't dare. She is like some skittish creature. A new horse, wary and untrusting. He doesn't want to frighten her. He closes his eyes and leans into her touch, instead.

"I don't understand," she finally says.

"I know you don't," he answers.

"I thought." A long pause, and he almost opens his eyes again, but she blurts. "I thought you chose me so that you wouldn't have to…break your vows. To Cersei."

"I swore no vows to Cersei," he says. He doesn't understand what she's saying, but when he opens his eyes and looks at her, he sees that she is blushing. He cannot help but smile, and it blooms into an incredulous laugh. He captures her jaw with his hand, keeping her from going too far when she scowls at his mirth. "You thought…"

"All _right_," she snaps, pulling her face away, pulling her hand again from his hair.

"It's only funny because the opposite is true. I've been too careful, it seems. I was so sure you would be frightened if you knew."

"If I knew?"

"How badly I want you, obviously." She's frowning. She doesn't believe him. Of course she doesn't. He laughs, though it's strained. "Gods, when you put your fingers in my hair, I thought I'd spend in the bath."

"Jaime," she says, startled.

"See? I've shocked you."

"But." Another long, tense silence. She's eyeing him doubtfully. If this was a few years ago, perhaps he would stand and confidently put himself on display for her. Let her see exactly how badly he wants her. But he quails at the idea now. He's not the golden lion any longer. "I don't understand," she says again.

"I nearly kissed you in the godswood at Winterfell. Maybe I should have. I nearly told you I love you when I asked you to marry me, but you accepted my proposal too quickly, and I thought…_sensible_, you said."

"Well, it was," she says. She stands up and paces across the room, but she doesn't go far enough to make him truly worry. She stops and looks back at him, her brow furrowed and her eyes still directed at him in the water. He recognizes the stance. It's the same stance she has when she's about to strike.

She doesn't strike, though, and she doesn't flee, though she looks like she might want to. She reaches up and opens the clasp on her armor. He watches. His mouth is already running dry. She meets his eye and takes another clasp. Her breastplate falls to the rug with a slightly muffled thunk, and he feels his heart leap in his chest. This is real. It’s happening for real, and not just in his every waking dream.

She moves to her legs, next. He wants to get up and help her, but he doesn't. He stays in the bath. He wants to take himself in hand, but he doesn't do that, either. That isn't Brienne. Not yet. Her arms are next. The metal falls to the floor with loud, echoing clangs that somehow don't break the tension of the moment at all. She stares at him all the while. Defiant. It's Harrenhall again. Brienne rising from the bath. She hesitates when it comes to her top, but then her steady fingers begin to unlace it, and Jaime breathes out fully, slowly, when she bares herself to him.

She has more scars than she had the last time he saw her like this, but she is still every inch a vision of the warrior and the maiden at once. Her breeches are next, and her smallclothes. Even at Harrenhall he had admired her form. Strong and built beautifully, like a marble sculpture of a woman who couldn’t possibly be real. Now, his eyes watch her through a lens of love, and she’s more than just merely striking.

She stares at him still. It's his turn, he understands. He forces himself to his feet. Water runs off him. The cool air is pleasant against his heated skin. He finds that he's worried about her reaction, but he doesn't worry long. Brienne goes pink, and then splotchy red, and she eyes him with a gratifying want.

"It's my turn in the bath," she tells him brusquely, and he throws his head back and laughs, the tension broken for good, and he strides across the room and pulls her into a kiss.

She kisses the same combative way she does everything else. Cersei was a warrior about it too, but not like this. Cersei kissed to win. To overpower. Brienne kisses to learn, to give as much as she takes. Sparring instead of trying to wound. He wraps his maimed arm around her, pulling her close, and he knows she will not yank herself away in disgust. Trust. He trusts her. He kisses her for it, and for the love he has felt pent up within him for so long.

When she breaks away at last, she looks down at him with a trembling kind of tension within her.

"A bath," she says. "And then…"

"And then," Jaime agrees.

In the past, Jaime's want was a sudden thing. A flame set to a square of parchment. A spark flaring to a brilliant fire in seconds. All-consuming, leaving him insensate with passion for Cersei.

With Brienne, it's different. Everything has been different with her, from the start, so he's not surprised that his want is different, too. It builds slowly inside him, stoked gently, burning low and steady. A campfire built correctly so it doesn't consume too quickly. It stays inside him, heavy in his gut, as he watches her sink into the water. He doubts it's very warm, but Brienne never complains. He watches her fondly as she cleans her skin. Her hands are shaking, but she is still herself. Competent. Almost brutal about it. A consummate soldier. His love inside him is warm, gentle, not hot or burning, and he feels like some of her steadiness is rubbing off on him. His heart had been racing. His mind had been whirling. Watching her, he's more calm. His breathing is slowing. It's an odd sensation, to want so much and to be so patient at the same time. He's never been like that.

She watches him as dries himself, as he wraps himself in a robe, as he locks the door. She watches him as he goes to the vanity. When he picks up his crown and puts it on his head, perching it on his damp hair, her hands stutter, and she nearly drops her cloth into the bathwater. The look on her face is intense, only difficult to read because he's never seen it on her before, but he knows it for the want it is. He leans against the vanity with a grin, and she mutters something frustrated and irritated that fills him with mirth again.

He had expected this moment to happen suddenly, if it ever happened at all. He had resigned himself to a careful wooing, but he has never known anything but quick and sudden and explosive; even now that it's happening, he can't imagine anything softer. He looks his fill of her, and he catches her doing the same.

She's the one who lacks patience this time. She scrubs with quick, sharp movements and before long is rising again. He holds a towel out for her. He has this idea that he might clean her off himself. Start slow, make his way across her body, but she snatches it from him before he can, and she dries herself quickly. Some other time, then.

When she's done, she turns to him. She moves slowly now. Deliberately. She lets the towel drop. She grips the edge of the robe over his heart in one hand. Loosely, giving him time to pull away and change his mind. He stands on his toes to kiss her instead.

He moves her back towards the bed. Sometimes, when things are too much, it has become second nature for Jaime to pull back. He doesn't always mean to. His mind just protects him that way, taking him out of difficult situations and forcing them to become something nicer. Or at least numbing him, helping him avoid the worst of the pain those moments can bring. But he has never been more present in his body than at this exact moment. He can feel every bit of everything. Even the bumps and forming bruises from the joust. The cold air on his skin. The stone beneath his feet. When Brienne reaches for the tie on his robe, her knuckles graze his stomach through the silk, and he very nearly whimpers with want.

He almost laughs at the thought of the songs the singers would write about this if they were here to see it. Bronn delights in sharing the words he hears in brothels, usually to amuse Tyrion and irritate Jaime. They're usually derisive, rude things written by people who have never met either Jaime or Brienne, and who know them only by conflicting stories of their reputations. There are songs of his savagery in the bedroom, comparing him to the bear that gave Brienne her scars. There are some of her beastliness, casting Jaime as the unwilling participant. And there are many about his unmanning, some of them with words about his wants that occasionally strike too true. Enough to worry him about it on occasion. But he isn't worried now. Perhaps she _does_ cause a weakness in his knees and a low fluttering in his belly, but this is their bedroom, and the world need not know about it.

He kisses her desperately, enjoying the angle of it, the fact that he is looking up and wanting more. He thinks of her strength and the power in her legs, and he is nearly mad with a need for her to hold him down and climb atop him. But that's for later, when they know each other better. When he can tell her what he craves. Now, she kisses him happily, hungrily, but clumsily enough that he knows she's nervous. Inexperienced and self-conscious about it. She pushes the robe off Jaime’s shoulders, and she allows him to crowd her back towards the bed, and when the backs of her knees hit it, she stops and pulls her mouth from his.

"Are you sure?" she asks him.

"That's my question to ask," he teases her. "I'm no virtuous maiden."

"Aren't you?" she asks, almost lazily, glancing up to his crown. "Perhaps I should have given the crown to someone else."

"Perhaps, but apparently your tastes run toward debauched older men.”

“Sad, really,” Brienne says, and he kisses her again. She only hesitates a moment before climbing backward, onto the bed. He follows her, shoving aside pillows and blankets as he goes. Gods, he may be a pampered lord who needs a soft bed these days, but why do there have to be so many _pillows_? Brienne laughs at him and lays back against _more_ pillows as he grumbles about it, kissing her neck, and the way her amusement feels against his lips as her laughter rumbles through her makes him smile against her throat. She is so much. There is so much of her to touch and kiss, and Jaime feels like an adventurer from a tale. Exploring new territory. The skin of her abdomen, just below her belly, is silk-soft, and she gasps and writhes when he touches her there. He files that away. Her neck. Her lower back. The undersides of her breasts. Her nipples. The insides of her thighs. Everywhere he touches with his hand and with his mouth seems to set her afire in some different way, and he cannot touch her enough. He curses the hand that's lost, the fingers that could have touched more of her, but he knows he would not be here with her if he hadn't lost it, and in this moment it seems a perfect trade. He is a green boy again, uncertain and questing, glad to be doing it, just glad to be touching her. He shifts mindlessly, slowly, against the bed. Desire is in every inch of him, but he somehow still isn't in a rush. It's impossible, the way he's allowed to balance here, with her. Wanting but not needing in the old sharp, painful way. She is his wife. There's time.

Her skin is soft from the recent bath, and her calloused hands are somehow soft as well. Fingertips gliding up his arm and finding the points that drive him wild, too. The back of his neck. The ridges of his spine. The sensitive skin between the deadened scars of his stump. She touches him like someone who already mapped out and catalogued the places she wished to touch, long before this, and now finds herself able. He's envious of her two hands and the courage she displays when she touches him with them. She has always been determined to keep pace with him, and this is no different. But she has the same unhurried lack of tension in her muscles. The same willingness to let this happen as it may. Jaime can almost not breathe, suddenly, for love of her. _This_, he thinks, not so much in words as in feelings that swell inside him. _This is what I’ve missed. All my life. This is the feeling_.

He kisses down her stomach because he knows it will make her gasp, and he smirks against her skin when it does. There's probably something to be said about his skill in reading his opponents on the battlefield and how it translates here, now, but he's too high on want to say it. He and Brienne fought well together at Winterfell, whether it was back to back or side by side, and he has no doubt that they'll fit in the same effortless way here.

Of course, it isn't only effortless, but the effort seems to make it better. She laughs loudly when he first touches his mouth to her cunt, shocking her with the ticklish feeling of his beard against her skin. Then it's gasps and moans and she nearly bucks him off her in her eagerness to be closer. He laughs too, holding to her leg to keep himself from falling off the bed, and she's red with embarrassment and covering her face with her hands, and it's nothing, _nothing_ like it ever was before, and Jaime cannot stop smiling. The warmth in his chest has nothing to do with how fucking hard he is, either. It's just there, heavy and sated no matter if he ever spends again. Her, it's _her_, it has to be.

Cersei never liked the taste of herself on Jaime's lips but as soon as Brienne has come down from her first peak, she scrabbles at his shoulders and pulls him up, hoists him atop her, kisses him hungrily, devouring him. _Another way_, he thinks. _Another way it's not the same_. And he's giddy. New discoveries. New wants. Is there anything else? Gods, there's going to be so much. They have years ahead of them.

She's holding his face with both hands, and she's looking at him. Her skin is red in odd places. Her mouth, her chin, all down her neck. Her eyes are glazed and disbelieving, and he will never forget that shocked, whining gasp of a sound that he pulled out of her with his mouth and fingers when she came for the first time. He's smiling, and she's looking at him like he's mad. Maybe he is. Maybe this is madness. This furious, heady, dipping feeling in his gut. This utter relief that _yes_, it's different. It's all different with her. Nothing is as it was.

He wonders what he looks like to her. He'd wondered as he pressed his mouth to her, and her eyes had gone wide and stricken when he'd met them. When they'd traveled up to the crown still on his head. His smile had curved against her flesh and she had smiled back, wild-eyed, breathing heavily. And, oh, he _is_ a vain man, but he wishes she could have known him years ago, when he was at his best. He wishes she could have looked down and seen his face between her thighs, looking untouched and beautiful for her. His hands could have held her, instead of one imperfect left and a stump not much use except for steadying. His golden hair. His unlined face. That's what she deserves. He's older now, grayer. She's looking at him like he's still that young. She makes him feel like he _is_.

She's still looking at him. Her blue eyes are blown wide, and her brow furrows and unfurrows as her body comes down from its high and she remembers that she doesn't know how to do any of this. She's touching him. One hand cradles his jaw and the other trails. Her right hand. Her good hand. It travels down his stomach and he gasps, his head falling forward and his arms shaking, struggling to hold himself above her as his gut gives a pleasant, needful little lurch. She hasn't even touched him yet. She's watching him. She bites her lip, and he wants and wants and wants. He can feel everything. Every nerve ending. Her fingers hesitate over his abdomen. Absurdly, he wants to apologize. He isn't sure why.

"Can I touch you?" she asks. He almost whines. The innocence of that question. The way her voice is low and gravel-laced. Hazy still.

"If you do, I won't last very long," he says. He aches to arch up into her touch, but he keeps himself still and trembles with the effort. "It's up to you, lady wife."

Her grin slices across her face. Daring and sarcastic like his. It does something to him to see it. Everything about her is doing something to him.

"We've waited this long to consummate the marriage," she says, and her fingers wrap around his cock. "What's a bit more?" Her words are all confidence, but her touch is hesitant, tender, enough to drive him madder than he already was. He laughs, but it's a short, aborted thing, and it transforms itself. Half gasp. Half moan. His hips rock forward. His eyes are on her face. She breaks eye contact and tilts her head down towards her hand where it's wrapped around him. Analyzing it. Adjusting her grip like she would on a sword. Now he _is_ laughing, even as he feels himself racing to the edge. She looks back up at him with a mildly affronted frown, and he loves her. He loves her.

"I love you," he says. An explanation and a promise and something he just can't keep inside. It needs to come out. He kisses her. She lets out a small, surprised sound. Her hand slides gently along his length, and he shudders, and it's all warmth and a growing tightness at his core that will burst soon. He can't still his hips any longer. He can't stop telling her he loves her. She changes her pace, adjusts her angle as any good soldier would, and she's a knight, and she crowned him for love and beauty both, and it's still on his head. Her husband. She loves him.

It's blinding, the pleasure that takes him as he spills into her hand. His maimed arm shakes where he has propped himself on his stump, and he nearly collapses, but Brienne's holding him, one hand running over his back. He's sensitive there, and he shivers, and he lowers himself gently so he’s only _half _atop her, his head on her shoulder, wanting to be close. Pressing against her skin. When she releases his cock and wipes her hands against the blanket, he shudders again, and she hums into his hair.

"Well, that seemed to work," she says, dry as ever, and he laughs again and groans and pushes his face into her throat. Kisses whatever skin he can reach. Lazily and poorly. He shifts his weight so he's not crushing her, though he knows she could hold him. His maimed arm rests on her stomach. She covers it with her hand before he has time to be self-conscious about it.

"I should say so," he manages. "Gods. I love you."

"So you said. About a thousand times. Are you always that mouthy?"

"Yes," he laughs. "I think so. I can't help it. You'll have to gag me if you want me to shut up. Which I wouldn't be opposed to."

"What?" she asks, alarmed, and he laughs again.

"Just think. There are so many options open to us. So much to catch up on. We could re-enact the Beast Woman's Pet."

"The…the _song_?" she asks, and she laughs again at the considering expression on his face. "You really _have_ been thinking about this, haven't you?"

"Often. And you haven't?"

"I wasn't letting myself."

"Ah, to be Brienne of Tarth," Jaime says, resting his head back against her shoulder, looking up at her in what he hopes is an at least vaguely enticing manner. "A maid so virtuous she doesn't even _think_ about fucking her husband."

"Well what was I supposed to do? Pine away hopelessly?"

"Oh, you've got to say that to Tyrion. He'll laugh himself half to death. If you could have only seen how dramatic I was about longing for you."

"Longing, was it?"

"Longing, pining, yearning." She's blushing.

"Jaime," she chides.

"Well, it's true. You could have at least done me the courtesy of a few sordid fantasies."

"Sordid fantasies?" she asks. Mildly outraged, but mostly still laughing. She doesn't believe him. "And I suppose you had many of those."

"Only every night," he says. "I intended to take care of myself in the bath, if you have to know.”

“I didn’t,” she says, though she can’t hide she’s intrigued. He smiles at her, because he cannot help himself.

“Well, now you do. We’re lucky I made it through the melee before needing to excuse myself. Watching you out there, beating all those men into the dirt.”

She laughs at him, then, a strangled kind of sound. But at his expression, the laughter slowly fades.

“You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because I’m…”

“Powerful. Magnificent. Glorious. Take your pick. You know how I like fancy words.”

“Jaime,” she says again, and he sighs.

“I know it isn’t easy for you,” he finally says. “And I know you…have doubts. But I fell in love with you, and every day since I have found more to love in your face. In the rest of you. If you only knew the amount of times I’ve dreamed of you holding me down and mounting me like a…”

“_All right_,” she hisses, interrupting, and he laughs at her and kisses the underside of her jaw, where it meets her throat. She shivers. He makes note of that, too.

“Do you believe me?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Give me a little time and you’ll have the evidence. Seems I’m never anything but at _least _half-hard when you’re in the room with me. It’s really inconvenient.”

“How long is a little time?” Brienne wonders. He thinks for a second that she’s going to reach down and stroke his cock again, and he nearly blacks out at the thought, but she only trails her fingers along his side.

“One of the drawbacks of marrying such an old husband,” he says, pressing his stump to his chest with a look of earnest sorrow. She laughs at him, and he pushes himself up enough to kiss her.

“You’re not old,” she says. She brushes some of his hair away from his face. “Well. You’re a bit gray. You’re just…” She pauses thoughtfully, and he’s already chuckling, because he knows that expression on her face. “I was going to say _distinguished_, but you’re certainly not that.”

“No,” he agrees.

“Handsome. Lovely. Mine.”

“Yours,” Jaime agrees happily. He likes the sound of that one best. “Your husband.”

“My husband,” Brienne repeats. She says it like a question still, but when she kisses him, it’s anything but.


	4. Two Halves of a Soul (Remix): The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Halves of a Soul - Remix. Jaime asks his roommate Brienne to pretend to be his soulmate so he can avoid being set up on a date. Except Brienne IS his soulmate, and she's known for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a sketched out idea in my notes folder the other day. I don't know if I intended this to be a separate soulmark story or a remix of Two Halves, but I eventually decided that I liked it as a Two Halves remix best!

“I need a favor,” Jaime says.

“My least favorite sentence from you,” Brienne notes absently. She can tell from the hint of panic in Jaime’s tone that it’s going to be a big one, too. She does her best not to look at him, to keep her eyes firmly on the sauce she’s stirring on the stovetop, like it’s a difficult task she needs more than half her focus for. Jaime’s at his least charming when she can’t see that stupid puppy-dog thing he does with his eyes and his furrowed forehead, like he’s begging her for a single scrap, even though what he’s _usually _begging her for is something time-consuming, difficult, and potentially humiliating.

“I need a soulmate,” Jaime says. Brienne considers throwing the saucepan across the room as a diversion to make her escape. But that’s not her style; Brienne’s biggest defense mechanism is her ability to stay utterly blank.

“A soulmate,” she says, deadpan. Jaime’s tone gets slightly needier, slightly more desperate. That means it’s working. If he were to put his hand against her chest for some reason, or the side of her neck, the way he does sometimes when he’s feeling affectionate, he would feel how hard her pulse is racing. 

“You remember Melara Hetherspoon, right?”

Brienne nods, still stirring sauce like the survival of her father depends on it. They’d gone to school together until Melara moved, freshman year. Melara was friends with Cersei, Jaime’s twin sister, but she had always been nice enough. Nicer than Cersei, anyway.

But that was like saying she was shorter than Brienne; of _course _she was.

She _was _short, if Brienne is remembering correctly. Short and plump and pretty, with curly brown hair that Brienne always envied. Her own hair’s texture is impossible to work with, and Melara's curls were soft and effortless.

“Did she pop up on one of your dating apps?” Brienne makes herself ask. Melara is the _exact _kind of girl Brienne has always imagined Jaime ending up with. Bubbly and sweet, with a delicate laugh and an adoring kind of devotion. Like the female version of his adult self, basically.

“No, no. I don’t…no. But she’s coming to the annual Tywin Lannister Has Lots of Money Party, and I guess she mentioned to Cersei…well, we kind of had this pact.”

“Oh, gods,” Brienne sighs. She takes her eyes off the sauce at last. Jaime looks chagrined, like he’s trying to smile but can’t manage it. “What kind of pact?”

“You know, if we’re not married by twenty-five, we’ll give it a shot? That kind of pact.”

Brienne can imagine it, and it almost makes her laugh. Melara, trying her hardest to seem casual even though she would have desperately wanted to kiss him. Jaime, oblivious, agreeing gleefully to the proposition because it was _Jaime_, and he tended not to say no to things, especially when he assumed they were in good fun. When Brienne thinks about their high school experience, it’s usually with incredulity that they ever managed to become friends, but sometimes she remembers that Jaime Lannister, The Consummate Jock, was really a soft-hearted nerd all along, and it always reestablishes some kind of equilibrium between them. Makes it seem less ridiculous that they’re friends despite their history.

“Twenty-five? Really?” she asks. Jaime edges a little closer, looking slightly more confident now that she sounds amused.

“Well, we were ten. Twenty-five seemed ancient to still be unmarried. Except now I’m twenty-eight and single, and _she_ just broke up with her girlfriend. She got in touch with Cersei, and Cersei…”

“Is eager to matchmake you even though you told her you’re not interested, because Cersei’s greatest pleasure is in causing you pain?” Brienne guesses. Jaime makes a quiet sound of agreement, his smile only a slight ticking up of the corner of his mouth. It makes Brienne’s heart clench, and she’s instantly annoyed. With him and with herself, perhaps in equal measure. Jaime’s break from his twin sister is the only reason they’re friends now, and she hates when she feels _sad _because it clearly still bothers him.

Brienne had hated Jaime in high school. Feared him, too. He and Cersei were so cruel to her, constantly mocking her looks and her awkwardness and whatever soft spots they could reach through her armor. Cersei was the ringleader. Brienne knew that from the start. But Jaime went along.

When they met by chance at a bar after college, Brienne had expected more of the same. But Jaime was apologetic, and drunk, and weepy, and he told her every horrible thing he felt about himself for how cruel he used to be to her. Later, after Brienne took pity on him and took him back to her place to sleep it off on her couch, and after he thanked her profusely the next morning with the unique embarrassment of humiliating himself in front of someone he used to know, they spent most of the day binge-watching true crime shows and making fun of the reenactments. They exchanged numbers. Jaime kept texting her. By the next weekend, they were friends.

Brienne kept expecting, at the time, that _something _would happen. She was wary about Jaime. She was careful in texts to never sound too eager, or too impressed, or too amused. She was sure that it would turn out to be some ridiculous prank. That Jaime would reveal that it was all some plot of Cersei’s that he was helping out with. But time passed, and trust grew, and Brienne saw enough of Jaime’s relationship with Cersei to eventually believe that their break was a permanent one. Jaime told her in pieces how he realized that he hated being Cersei’s creature, hated being cruel to people for her benefit, hated acting like it didn’t bother him that he had allowed himself to turn into a monster. It sometimes felt, to Brienne, a bit like when she and Loras helped Renly through his decision to quit drinking after college revealed a tendency toward alcoholism. Jaime would start to slip, start to think that going back to Cersei was the only choice, that he wasn’t made for anything else, that he was being a terrible brother by writing her off instead of trying to help her.

It’s difficult to separate yourself entirely from people, even if those people turn out to be toxic. Brienne can’t imagine having to cut out a twin. It would be like having to stop speaking to Robb, and she’s only known him since she was a kid. Since birth? How do you do _that_?

But Jaime _did_, and even if he gets a bit downtrodden about it sometimes, he hasn’t gone back.

They moved in together after a year, with the justification that they spent most of their time at each other’s apartments, so they might as well share the rent on one. Brienne’s friends, most of whom went to high school with she and Jaime, all thought she’d lost her mind at first, but Jaime has slowly integrated himself, proving himself to all of them. He still clings to her company when they’re all together, like he needs to justify his inclusion in the group, but he has slowly started to stand on his own.

Cersei, Brienne gathered a long time ago, didn’t really let Jaime choose his friendships. Brienne thinks that might be why he sometimes seems so much like an alien species. Some beautiful, odd, infuriating creature who stumbled drunkenly into her life after years apart and has slowly been wrapping himself around her ever since, like a coiling boa, constricting her and lulling her with his sweetness and his kindness and his generosity. Entwining their lives in a way she couldn’t possibly escape even if she _wanted _to. It made her want to bolt at first, and there are still some moments when she looks at their shared life and thinks: _what the fuck are you _doing_? _

“Why me?” she asks, managing to keep her voice steady. “I could ask Sansa if…”

“Sansa’s married,” Jaime says. “To her soulmate. And you…” He sighs. He looks nervously at her, like he wants _her_ to finish the sentence. Sometimes she thinks he’s more fragile about their past than she is. He sometimes looks at her like a single teasing word will break her.

“And I don’t have one,” she finishes. Jaime’s smile is still nervous, still a bit pre-kicked-dog, and Brienne sighs. She sighs again when she realizes that the sauce is too brown. She pulls her focus for a few seconds, distracted by Jaime, and it all goes to shit. Sometimes that feels like a metaphor for her entire life, and she wants to run away again. “All right, whatever,” she says. “Get me a picture of the mark and I’ll have Loras draw it on me.”

Jaime’s smile is brilliant, and his arms around her are warm, and he grips her shoulder in the same place he always does, so that his fingers clamp unsuspectingly right over the matching soulmark he can never know about.

* * *

It wasn’t like she was looking for it. In fact, every time Jaime even wore _running shorts_, Brienne was clear across the apartment, very busy, because she will not be the ugly girl accused of ogling her extremely attractive roommate. But accidents happen, and she walked into the hallway one morning just as Jaime was changing his shirt in his room, and she saw his soulmark.

They talked about soulmates a bit in the beginning of their friendship. It’s just one of those things about meeting new people, or befriending people you used to hate, or whatever the case was. _How do you feel about soulmates? _people asked each other. Jaime was the one who brought it up, tentative and a little embarrassed by it, almost. Brienne gave the same answer she always gives: _I don’t have one_. _I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t believe that they’re a guarantee, anyway. It doesn’t bother me. _

At that point in her life, even as young as just after college, Brienne was just _tired. _Tired of shocked silences and nervous giggles and overperformed curiosity whenever she mentioned her soulmark. The cruelest words and the out-loud rudenesses were easy enough to take, but she hadn’t really experienced that since she left high school and Cersei Lannister behind. It was the awkward pity from kinder people that she hated. The polite, too-quick nods and the sorrowful support. Like they were trying to hide the fact that they were wondering how her soulmate would feel when he realized who it was that the universe had chosen for him.

Jaime didn’t mention his soulmark very much after that. He seemed almost apologetic that he clearly cared about it so much, like he was afraid she would think he was an idiot or a sap for believing in it as hard as he did. She knew he was still looking for them, for whatever lucky person had his mark on their skin, but he was respectful about her lack of faith, and he only rarely mentioned it.

And then she saw it, on the back of his shoulder. A sword.

_Her_ sword.

* * *

It wasn’t like. Well. It kind of was. But…

It’s just. He’s _Jaime_.

He’s golden, and athletic, and kind, and delicate, and horrible, and too sharp and too soft at once. He’s a terror of a friend, and he’s the best roommate, and she has always thought him disgustingly handsome, even when she hated him so much she couldn’t breathe right when he spoke to her.

And now...

Well, she’s in love with him. She was in love with him probably from the time they moved in together, but she was certainly in love with him by the time she saw their sword on his skin for the first time. She loves him in the way she always loves boys that are so impossibly out of her reach that they become safe to love. She once loved Renly in the same way, knowing full well that he’s gay and would never return her feelings. And she had loved actors and sports stars like Arthur Dayne. With no expectations. No hopes. It’s easy to love that way. There’s no chance of being hurt, because you understand the limitations.

Loving Jaime was always the same, before she saw the soulmark. He was _right there_, close enough to love without her ever having to fear or hope that her love would be returned. Because despite what her friends keep insisting, Brienne Tarth is not an ‘acquired taste’ or ‘beautiful in her own way’. Brienne Tarth is ugly. She’s ugly, and mannish, and too big for most boys. It broke her heart when she was a teenager, but she isn’t a teenager anymore, and she is made of sterner stuff. She likes her life. She has so many good friends, and she has her father, and she doesn’t need any longer to wish that she was beautiful enough for a man like Jaime Lannister to fall in love with.

Because he _wouldn’t_, and that’s why. That’s why she’s still carrying the secret of their soulmarks. That’s why she never wears tank tops around him, never goes swimming with him without a dark t-shirt on over her swimsuit. She knows him so well, and she knows herself, and she knows exactly what would happen if he found out.

Everyone knows that soulmates aren’t a guarantee. Everyone knows that they’re basically a suggestion at this point. People have their soulmarks removed all the time because they don’t like their soulmates, or because their soulmates have broken their heart, or because they found love somewhere else and they don’t want to worry about their soulmate getting in the way. Loras is a tattoo artist, and half his client base is people covering up unwanted soulmarks with something else. But Jaime isn’t like that. Jaime believes that the universe doesn’t make mistakes on things like soulmates. And she and Jaime _do_ get along, and they _are_ great friends, but there’s so much more to love than that. If he ever finds out…

Well, even without talking about it, it’s clear to Brienne that Jaime believes in soulmates more than anyone she’s ever met. He’s on all those apps and databases, constantly uploading the picture of his mark in the hopes that the person of his dreams will find him through it. If she told him about their matching marks, if she showed him her sword, he would want to give it a shot. He would try to look past her indelicate features and her indelicate form, and she would have to endure his quiet attempts at forcing himself to be attracted to her.

It would be just like Hyle Hunt, first in high school and then in college, when he convinced her that neither of them were going to get any action otherwise so they might as well date. He was nice enough, Hyle. He sometimes bought her flowers. He was always honest with her that his feelings weren’t very strong, but he made her laugh, and they played video games together, and he never got annoyed when she won, and they could talk about anything. It was better than Brienne had expected, even if it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even like _she_ was attracted to _him_. But there was something so horrible about the way he would steel himself before looking at her. Before kissing her. She never did find out if he’d be able to work up the nerve to fuck her; she ended it out of sheer humiliation at the thought of him not even being able to get it up for her.

It was nice for a while, though, to think that she could have that, even if it was something so practical. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t do it again, and she certainly wouldn’t do it with Jaime.

He's just…he's such a romantic. He watches all those stupid soulmate movies. He signs up for services with idiotic names like SoulDate and A Perfect Match. Every soulmate database service in Westeros probably has the same picture of his sword sitting on it, waiting for a match that will never be made.

He's quiet about it. Respectful to her. It's been more than a year, maybe, since he’s even mentioned it. He feels guilty that he has a soulmark and she doesn’t. He did the same thing when Cersei’s soulmark came in late, he told her once. Covered his soulmark and pretended it wasn’t there so she wouldn’t be upset.

_I’m not Cersei_, she told him at the time. _I don’t care about soulmates_. But it was obvious that he didn’t believe her.

Why would he? It was such an obvious lie. Her soulmark, ever since she was a child, it was _there_ for her. It was a reminder that, in the future, someone would love her. She would look at it in the mirror after particularly difficult days, staring at its beautiful, red-tinted sheen. She would breathe in and out and then close her eyes and remember that the universe didn’t make mistakes. One day, she would meet a man with the same mark on his shoulder, and he would love her.

And he _does. _She has no doubt of that. Jaime loves her. He’s her friend. He’s a wonderful man. But she always hoped that she would get a _true _soulmate. One of the ones that leads to an unshakable romance that lasts a lifetime. Not one of the ones that promises friendship.

* * *

Jaime prints out a copy of the picture of his back, as promised, and gives it to her the next day. It’s zoomed out farther than it needs to be, and she forces her eyes not to travel the skin over his spine and the muscles in his shoulders.

“I’ll take it to Loras tomorrow and see what he can do,” she says vaguely, putting it face-down on the coffee table in front of her. Jaime leans in over the back of the couch where she’s sitting and kisses her on the cheek. 

“My knight in shining armor,” he says. She scowls at him.

“I don’t understand why you don’t just date her. I always thought she was so pretty.”

“She’s fine,” Jaime agrees, flopping onto the couch beside her, too close for comfort as always. “Cersei sent me a picture. She’s one of those people who got even prettier after high school.”

“Like you,” Brienne points out, deadpan, and Jaime preens just slightly.

“Like me,” he confirms. “She’s _loud_, though. Louder than I remember. She was in the background when Cersei first called me, and it was like…I don’t know. A car alarm going off.”

“Should we add _loud_ to the list of stupid reasons you don’t click with people?” Brienne asks, reaching for her phone and pulling up the Notes app. He tries to swat it out of her hand, but she laughs and holds it away, reading off the list she started writing when she noticed that Jaime always had the most absurd reasons for not going on second dates. “Too short. Voice too whispery. Gross beard. Gross _moustache_. Hair too long. Hair too _short_. Green eyes. Dainty walk.” She looks over at Jaime, grinning. Jaime’s glaring at her. “That’s my favorite,” she says, and he barks out a laugh. “And…too loud.”

“It’s longer than that, isn’t it?” Jaime asks.

“It was, but remember last weekend? You started drunkenly raving about how hot Mrs. Stark is, so I took ‘too old’ and ‘red hair’ off the list. Plus, you went out on a second date with Addam.”

“Oh, right. Chews weird. Put that down, too.”

“He was your best friend in elementary school, and _that’s_ what did it?”

“Well, there were other things, but the chewing was pretty bad.”

Brienne snorts and adds _chews weird _to the list.

“The next time you try one of those matchmaker services, you should give them this list so they can narrow it down. Some of them are quite good. They might surprise you.”

“Have you ever used one?” Jaime asks. Brienne laughs like he’s joking, though she thinks he might be asking seriously. That’s another thing he does: he treats the idea of Brienne and relationships like it’s just…like it’s a possibility. Sometimes she thinks it’s sweet that he thinks there’s someone out there who might actually like Big Brienne. But sometimes, like today, it just annoys her. It must be easy to be so generous when you’re as hot as Jaime is.

“No,” she answers. “Of course I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not interested. Hyle was enough for me.”

“You dated _one_ terrible man and you’ve sworn off not only _us_, but also women. It’s unfair, is what it is. You’re depriving so many people.”

“Tragically, I am heterosexual, as you know,” Brienne points out, which makes him laugh helplessly. He pulls one leg up onto the couch and wraps his arm around it, braces his elbow against the cushion so he can turn and look at her, his chin in his hand. He has this way of looking at her sometimes. So endlessly fond. Endlessly amused by her. Like every word out of her mouth is special to him. No wonder the universe thought they were soulmates. “It’s not like there’s a line out the door,” she says. Jaime’s fond smile instantly turns to a sullen frown.

“I thought Margaery and I bullied this out of you,” he says.

“It’s not being down on myself if I’m just being realistic.”

“But you’re _not_! You…”

“I am perfectly happy remaining single,” she says, and she even _means_ it. Even if she never meets someone. Even if she never falls in love properly. She has so _much_ in her life that fulfills her completely, and she has long since stopped thinking that romance is worth more than everything else that her life has given her. Robb’s struggles with his soulmate showed her that even the best of people sometimes are dealt difficult hands. People like Sansa and Theon or Loras and Renly are truly made for each other, but not everyone is as lucky. “Besides,” she manages to say. “I don’t need a boyfriend. I’ve got you and the Starks and Renly and Loras. Between all of you, that’s enough relationship drama for a lifetime. I promise, Jaime.” She meets his eyes, and she sees that he’s still frowning softly at her. Of course he doesn’t believe her. Jaime is a man made for love.

And that’s the worst thing. It’s the reason she always does his laundry when he forgets, and the reason she always takes care of him when he’s sick, and the reason he can _always_ convince her to do something just by looking at her pleadingly enough. He probably thinks he’s charming, and sure that’s _part_ of it. But mostly it’s just…

Guilt.

Jaime is a man made for love, and he has wasted so much of his life looking for his soulmate. The one person he will feel complete with. He doesn’t give anyone else a chance! That’s why his list is so absurd. That’s why he’s always so defensive when she asks him about his dates and his more recent lack of them. That’s why, when people set him up, he goes out to dinner and then returns home with some reason he isn’t going to call them for a second one. He’s a man made for love, but he’s never going to actually _find _it if he doesn’t let himself look. If he clings to the romantic ideal of soulmates so hard that he blocks out everything else.

So either she tells him and ruins the illusion and has to endure his disappointment and his attempts to pretend he isn’t, or she _doesn’t_ tell him, and she lets him live the rest of his life thinking that The One is just around the corner.

She can’t do that to him. She can’t do _either_ of those things to him.

“Maybe,” she says, in the tone of a mother trying to get their child excited about a gross new food. “Melara isn’t like you remembered. Maybe she’s perfect for you.”

“She isn’t,” Jaime says, and Brienne rolls her eyes. “It isn’t even about _that_. It’s just…she’s not for me.”

“Well, all right,” Brienne sighs. “But I’m only doing this once, so you’d better figure out a new excuse to not date people you aren’t interested in.”

Jaime grins at her, and he kisses her on the shoulder, the way he does sometimes when he’s sleepy and it’s all he can reach. She never manages to ignore the way it makes her stomach flutter.

* * *

The party at Tywin Lannister’s house is one Brienne dreads going to. They didn’t go last year, but they did the year before, and it was like every rich person stereotype was jammed into one place. It was awful. It’s been years since high school, but Cersei Lannister has the ability to make Brienne feel like she’s still that awkward, gangly, too-quiet wallflower who just wanted to be left alone. Cersei had been cruel enough when they were children, but then in high school, she and Sansa briefly became friends, and it seemed then that Cersei could not get enough of tormenting Brienne. Making fun of her. Pulling Jaime in on it. It’s been years, and Jaime isn’t that same boy, but still Brienne looks at him nervously the moment they step across the threshold, as if she will see that old mocking grin on his handsome face.

But no. He’s still her Jaime. His brow is furrowed. He looks around the room like _he _doesn’t want to be here any more than she does, which of course is exactly the case. He takes Brienne’s coat like the gentleman he was raised to be, and his eyes go directly to the soulmark on her exposed back. It makes her tense up, even though she knows he bought her story about visiting Loras’s shop for a temporary tattoo version of his sword. He brushes his fingers over it again, the way he did when she showed him for the first time, and it tingles. She wonders if he feels it in his fingertips, too. She doesn’t think that’s a thing, but surely it must be. Some supernatural force calling out to both of them. 

“It looks so good,” he says for the third time today. His breath is hot on the back of her neck, and she twists and takes her coat back from him, shrugging.

“It’s Loras,” she says. An explanation and a deflection. Jaime’s eyes are on the front of her shoulder, as if he can see through her muscle and bone to the beacon on her back, and she feels so uncomfortably pinned like this, with his eyes on her. He’s fascinated just by the look of it, just by his mark on someone else’s skin.

_This is why_, she reminders herself harshly. _He would _try_. He would _try_, and you would know it was only because of your mark. _

“We should find your sister,” she says, louder than she intends to. Jaime jolts out of whatever romantic daydream he was having about his sword on some better-suited person, and he takes her coat back again, and he brings it over to the coat check area. Because of course Tywin Lannister has employed two of his nephews as coat checkers for the night.

Jaime draws her arm through his and leads her around the house. Brienne has been his plus one to Lannister events before, so she greets the familiar faces. Aunt Genna. Uncle Kevan. Cleos and Lancel and Martyn and a dozen other look-alike nephews of Tywin with increasingly absurd names. Jaime stands out among them, golden and dazzling and brilliant. The rest are only watered down versions of Lannister perfection. It’s Jaime they all wish they were.

In the dining room, Jaime’s hand tightens on her arm. A gentle squeeze. Brienne knows what that means. She sips the champagne that Genna earlier pressed into her hands. Her mouth has gone very dry. Her heart is racing. Somehow, facing Cersei never gets any easier, and yet she does, turning to watch Jaime’s sister as she approaches.

Cersei is accompanied tonight by Melara Hetherspoon, who was nice enough when they were in school together. Melara was one of Cersei’s closest friends, but she had none of Cersei’s cruelty and none of Cersei’s slyness. She was pretty in highschool, but Jaime was right; she’s somehow even prettier now. Her natural beauty is enhanced by makeup so expertly done that Brienne just _knows_ Cersei did it to make Melara look as good as possible for her first meeting with Jaime.

Brienne isn’t wearing any makeup. Brienne _never_ wears makeup, and it usually doesn’t bother her when other women do, but she feels suddenly ridiculous on Jaime’s arm. It’s not like Jaime’s wearing makeup either, and it’s not like she _wants_ to spend hours trying to cake enough expensive product on her face that she’ll look like someone other than herself, but she always feels this impulse to blend in as much as possible. Or like she _should_ wear makeup, should put in some effort to be less offensively ugly to the people around her, even though she has always feared that she would look ridiculous if she tried.

“Jaime,” Cersei says, with a smile that cuts Brienne, though Cersei isn’t even looking at her. “I didn’t realize you had agreed to come.”

Jaime smiles back, but it’s a cold and polite smile that he has used for every other member of his extended family tonight, and Brienne can see how it enrages his twin. Whatever game it is that Cersei keeps trying to play, Jaime hasn’t been engaging, and it makes her feel powerless. Brienne knows this. She understands why to a girl like Cersei, who is used to getting everything, Jaime’s inattention hurts worse than a true fight would. But she’s proud of Jaime for not giving in. She squeezes his arm in support, and he looks at her. His smile grows. Gets more genuine. It never stops shocking Brienne, how bright he is when he looks at her.

“I wanted to share the happy news in person,” he says, turning back to look at Cersei, having drawn some strength from Brienne. “I met my soulmate. Well, found her. It’s just like a movie, isn’t it? The person who was there all along.”

They have a whole story planned, for if anyone asks. How Jaime saw her changing into a swimsuit when he walked by her open bedroom door. It was so like the truth of how Brienne discovered his mark that she was for a moment afraid that he had known all this time, but there was nothing accusatory or sly in his words or his expression. Just joy at the fun of coming up with a story that would explain how they could live together for years without ever figuring it out.

Brienne forces her lips into an approximation of a smile. Some other woman, she’s sure, would say something loving, or witty, or at least that forced kind of wit that everyone secretly hates when they’re talking to near-strangers, but Brienne can’t find it. Whatever it is she’s looking for, it slips through her fingers. She feels awkward and ugly and ungainly, and she sees the way that Melara’s eyes wander over her with confusion. She knows that Melara probably just came here expecting to be set up with Jaime and is now disappointed to find him taken, but it’s still like being sixteen again. Sixteen and ugly and unwanted.

“What,” Cersei says flatly. She looks almost afraid. “You. What?”

“Show them, Brienne,” Jaime says gently, still smiling, and Brienne turns, allowing the two girls to see her soulmark.

She didn’t even think of it, at the time. She hasn’t thought of it for years. But the simple action of turning her back on an incredulous Cersei reminds her: Cersei has seen her soulmark before. It was a slumber party at Sansa’s house, and the girls made Brienne show off her soulmark, and Brienne felt Cersei’s nails biting into her skin as Cersei touched it.

After that, Cersei grew more cruel, and she pulled Jaime into all of her cruelties. She made sure that Brienne hated him. She made sure that Brienne was afraid of him.

She made sure they’d never figure it out.

She turns back around, and she meet’s Cersei’s eyes. Yes, there’s fear there. Brienne is almost giddy with relief. Cersei knows. Cersei _has _known. And now Brienne knows, too.

If there’s anything that’s going to get Cersei to leave her alone, it’s this. She smiles, and Cersei stares, and Brienne isn’t sixteen any longer.

* * *

Their gambit pays off, though the speed with which Cersei drags Melara away obviously confuses Jaime, who says that he had expected a larger explosion. He keeps his arm around Brienne’s waist, chatting with her happily, probably keeping up their cover to avoid looking suspicious if Cersei looks their way again. When they sit down for dinner, he drives Brienne mad by continuing to touch her soulmark. Letting his hand drift over it when he touches her shoulder for her attention. Draping his arm across the back of her chair and brushing his fingers over the ink that isn’t ink, because it’s real. It’s real, and Cersei knew, and Brienne is going to be sick.

Word has spread, apparently. Aunt Genna says it’s obvious they were meant to be together, which makes Brienne want to get up and leave because _surely _she’s mocking. Tywin is vaguely approving of the match, which disappoints Jaime. Tyrion seems to think the whole thing is hilarious, which maybe means that _he’s_ known all along too. It’s only Jaime who’s oblivious. Jaime who’s happy they’re pulling this off. Jaime whose only sin is in not being in love with her and being too enamored of the idea of soulmates. Jaime, her best friend, her soulmate, and she’s lying to him.

After dinner, they’re sitting around in one of the Lannister house’s many sitting rooms, catching up with Kevan, and Jaime perches on the edge of her armchair and brushes his fingertips over her skin again. She lurches up. She can’t take it. She mutters an excuse and heads for the bathroom, and she splashes cold water on her face. She looks at herself in the mirror. She’s pale and freckled and blotchy and just as ugly as ever. _It doesn’t matter that we’re soulmates. It doesn’t matter that we’re soulmates. I won’t do it. I can’t endure it._

She takes too long.

She takes too long, and then she goes back out to find Jaime, and he isn’t where she left him. He isn’t in the dining room, either. She wanders to the library, and she finds Tywin talking to Olenna Tyrell and...

“Brienne,” Loras says with relief, excusing himself from his grandmother’s side and hurrying over to Brienne’s. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was supposed to lie for you. Jaime asked me about a fake soulmark? I just said I didn’t know what he was talking about. Brienne, he was really upset. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She pardons him, hugs him, apologizes to him, because it isn’t his fault. It isn’t his fault she made him into a lie for her. It isn’t his fault his grandmother probably dragged him along last minute and he didn’t tell her he would be coming. It isn’t his fault Brienne’s lie made him look like the world’s best tattoo artist and that of course Jaime had to compliment him. None of it is his fault. It’s hers. She aches now, deep in her chest. Jaime has been so careful with her since they met up again. He has been so gentle. So cautious of causing her any possible hurt. And she has allowed her fear and her panic to hurt him deeper than he ever hurt her with his cruelties in high school.

She expects to see his car gone from the street in front of the house, but of course it isn’t. Of course he didn’t just leave her here. He’s Jaime. He wouldn’t. He’s standing on the sidewalk beside his car, leaning against it and looking up at the stars, and for a moment he looks normal. He looks like he decided to step out for some air. But then her shoes hit the pavement of the sidewalk, and he turns, and he looks at her. The light from his childhood home doesn’t quite reach his face, but she can see enough through the shadows.

“Jaime,” she says.

“Is it true?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. Jaime looks away, scrubbing a hand over his face, and she has the sinking awareness that he’s _crying_. Jaime _Lannister_ is crying.

_This isn’t high school anymore_, she reminds herself harshly. _He isn’t Jaime Lannister. He isn’t Cersei’s brother. He’s your _friend_. He’s your soulmate, but he’s your friend above all else, and you have hurt him. _

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out. “I’m sorry, Jaime.”

“How long have you known?”

She won’t lie to him again, but it takes a moment to work up to admitting the truth, and she sees the resignation on his face before she manages to get it out.

“A long time,” she finally admits.

“I’m such an idiot,” he breathes. She moves closer to him, but he looks at her like a wild animal, backed into a corner and ready to strike.

“You aren’t an idiot. I…I didn’t want you to know.”

He closes his eyes, and he shakes his head, and she remembers every time he has sought out some affection from her. She knows now enough about his childhood and about his experiences growing up to know that there was never much affection in his life. She was always glad to give it to him. Even apart from him being the man she loved, she had so much of it inside her to give. It would have been a shame not to share some of it with someone in need. Brushing his hair out of his face. Hugging him. Leaning up against him while they sat on the couch. He just likes to touch and be touched, and she approaches him now and touches his shoulder. He flinches back.

“No,” he says, and she snatches her hand away. “I need to know why.”

“I,” she starts. There are so many reasons why. She falters. Her thin grasp on confidence fumbles. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Jaime shakes his head at her; that isn’t good enough.

“Is it because of high school?” he asks. His voice breaks in the middle. She murmurs a soft denial. She wants to reach out to him again, but she doesn’t. She wrings her hands together. She feels helpless.

“I know how you feel about soulmates,” she says. “I didn’t want…I knew you’d want to _be_ together, that you’d think we were supposed to be together, and…”

“And you didn’t want to.”

She’s so stunned by the absurdity of that guess that she almost lets him turn and walk away, accepting her silence as his answer. But no, it _is_ absurd, and she grabs his arm before he can turn away fully.

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed,” she insists.

His brow furrows. His mouth turns down into that frown of disapproval she knows so well. She drops his arm, but he catches her hand and squeezes it. A gesture of comfort even though he won’t accept hers.

“Why would I be disappointed?” he asks.

“Jaime.”

She doesn’t have to say. He’s still shaking his head, but he understands what she won’t speak. His expression twists into something that’s loathing and loving all at once. It’s so Jaime. And he’s so hurt. Hurt by her and _for _her at once.

“You didn’t even notice,” he says miserably. 

“Notice what?”

“I quit the SoulDate app. I stopped going to Ellaria for matchmaking. I only go on dates when people set me up and I don’t know how to get out of it. We’ve spent every weekend together for the past two months. Did you really not notice?”

She hadn’t. Now that she looks back on it, sure, Jaime has been around a lot more. But she never thought…

“Why…what does that mean?” she manages.

If she was some other girl. If this was some exchange she was overhearing. Obviously she would know _exactly_ what it meant, but it doesn’t make any sense. _He_ isn’t making any sense. The context…it’s impossible.

“I stopped giving a shit about soulmates the moment you told me you didn’t have one,” Jaime says. She shakes her head. She steps back.

“That’s not true. You were still looking! I told you that _years _ago.”

“I thought I owed it to them. To _tell _them, at least.”

“_Jaime_.”

“I spent so long hoping to meet them. I felt like shit for choosing someone else, but…no, that’s the wrong phrasing. It wasn’t a choice at all. It was just…it was _you_, the whole time. I knew it. I thought I was just broken, that the universe chose wrong. I didn’t want anyone but you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“_Why_ is it ridiculous? You have my sword on your shoulder!” Jaime realizes he’s practically shouting in the middle of the sidewalk, and he runs his hands through his hair and takes a moment to breathe. “Look,” he says, finally. “If you don’t want me…”

“_That’s_ ridiculous,” she snaps, and he stops, surprised, barking out that shocked laugh he does sometimes. He looks up at her. His face in the shadows seems to be twisting into a thousand expressions at once.

“I hate you,” he says. “You’re the worst. Of course I’m in love with you, you big idiot. I’ve been throwing myself at you for months. I mean, I’ve liked you for years, but the past two months I’ve _really _been putting in an effort.”

“That makes _no_ sense,” Brienne insists.

“Gods, how many times are we going to have to have this conversation? Attraction doesn’t _have_ to make sense. It often _doesn’t_. You’re my fucking soulmate, Brienne.” His face breaks open, suddenly. A grin flashing at her out of the darkness. He was half laughing, but now he just stares at her, wanting and open and soft. “You’re my soulmate,” he repeats.

“It doesn’t always mean anything,” she tries, weakly. He’s moving closer.

“Do you want it to mean something?” he asks. She can see only the glimmer of light reflecting off his eyes, and the brightness of his teeth. He’s biting his lip. He’s nervous of her answer.

“Yes,” she says. Allows. It feels like the bravest word she’s ever said.

Jaime kisses as intensely as he does everything else. Throwing himself into it, pulling her by the back of her neck, raising himself up onto his toes to meet her mouth. She’s never kissed like this before, because she needed to, because she wanted to devour someone. Kissing Hyle was a performance, a routine, something that was done because they were supposed to. Kissing Jaime feels like the first time getting drunk. Those surprising bubbles, the lightheaded sensation, the giggles that want to burst out of you because _oh_, this is what everyone’s always talking about.

When he pulls away, she is briefly glad for the dark so that he cannot see her swollen lips or her blotchy red face, but then it sinks in: he sees those things all the time. He sees every part of her, and he still seems to want her.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I should have noticed.”

“Maybe I should have told you,” Jaime says.

“Maybe I should have told _you_,” Brienne retorts. He snorts a little and leans forward, bowing his neck to rest his forehead against her chest as he laughs. She brings one hand up to the back of his neck and cards her fingers through his hair. She knows he’ll shiver and lean closer, and that’s exactly what he does, smiling up at her.

“We don’t have to figure out who’s the bigger idiot tonight,” he says.

“Do you want to go back inside?”

“Gods, no. I can’t believe you just _pretended_ to be my soulmate. You’re such an asshole.”

“You needed help, and I helped you. I was being a good friend.”

“_A good friend._ You were being an asshole.”

“I should have probably told Loras I used him for a lie. He feels so guilty now.”

“I’ll give you that one: I speak to Loras like once every six months. This was just bad timing. And you shouldn’t have, by the way.”

“What?”

“Told Loras about the lie. Can you imagine? It could have taken forever.” He goes quiet, suddenly. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I didn’t want...you were so invested in the idea of soulmates. I didn’t want to ruin it for you. But I also…I don’t think I would have been able to watch you want it for years. I was trying to get you to date. Forget about soulmates completely.”

“While being in love with me? We’re back on ridiculous again.”

“I didn’t want...I thought you’d try. That would be the worst thing. If you didn’t want me, but you thought you had to try.”

“High school,” he says quietly. “It all comes back to high school.”

“That wasn’t it,” she says, but Jaime shakes his head, and he’s probably right, anyway. Now that she knows that Cersei knew, it’s easy to see her hand in it. Brienne resolves to tell him _that _part as soon as possible, but she won’t do it now. Tonight is just for them.

“I think I even liked you in high school,” Jaime says. “I didn’t…I didn’t know you. I just thought you were fascinating. Everything you did, and you had all these friends, and you were so…different. Around them. I wanted to be your friend so badly.”

“You had a funny way of showing it.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“You aren’t,” Brienne argues gently. “I’m just…I’m not used to it.”

“What?”

“Being wanted.”

Even saying it aloud makes her embarrassed. Like she has admitted too much. Overstepped somehow. _Of course I don’t want you,_ he’ll say. _I can love you without wanting you_. But no, of course he doesn’t say that. He just shakes his head.

“Sounds like I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he says. And something about the way he says the words makes it sound like that’s the most exciting thing in the world.


End file.
